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LIBRARY 


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THE    MAKERS 

OF 

MODERN    ROME 


POPE  GREGORY. 


Frontispiece. 


THE   MAKERS 


OF 


MODERN     ROME 


IN  FOUR   BOOKS 

I.     HONOURABLE   WOMEN  NOT  A  FEW 

II.     THE   POPES   WHO   MADE   THE   PAPACY 

III.     LO  POPOLO:    AND  THE   TRIBUNE   OF  THE   PEOPLE 

IV.     THE  POPES  WHO  MADE  THE   CITY 


BY 

MRS.    OLIPHANT 

AUTHOR  OF   "  THE  MAKERS  OF  FLORENCE 


WITS  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  HENRY  P.  RIVIERE,  A.R.W.S. 
AND  JOSEPH  PENNELL 


gorfc 
MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 

AND    LONDON 
1895 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1895, 

BY  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 

LANDSCAPE 
ARCHITECTURE 


Korinooti  $ress 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith. 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


idd  to  M6. 

Gift 


04- 

1395 

LANDSCAPE 

ARCH. 

LIBRARY 


I  INSCRIBE  THIS  BOOK 

WITH  THE  DEAE  NAMES   OF  THOSE  OF  MINE 
WHO  LIE  UNDEK  THE  WALLS   OF  ROME: 

AND  OF  HIM,  THE  LAST  OF  ALL, 

WHO  WAS  BOEN  IN  THAT  SAD  CITY: 

ALL  NOW  AWAITING  ME,   AS  I  TEUST, 

WHEEE  GOD  MAY  PLEASE. 

F.    W.    O. 

M.  W.   O. 

F.    K.    O. 


933 


PREFACE. 

NOBODY  will  expect  in  this  book,  or  from  me,  the 
results  of  original  research,  or  a  settlement — if  any 
settlement  is  ever  possible  —  of  vexed  questions  which 
have  occupied  the  gravest  students.  An  individual 
glance  at  the  aspect  of  these  questions  which  most 
clearly  presents  itself  to  a  mind  a  little  exercised  in 
the  aspects  of  humanity,  but  not  trained  in  the  ways 
of  learning,  is  all  I  attempt  or  desire.  This  humble 
endeavour  has  been  conscientious  at  least.  The  work 
has  been  much  interrupted  by  sorrow  and  suffering, 
on  which  account,  for  any  slips  of  hers,  the  writer 

asks  the  indulgence  of  her  unknown  friends. 

ix 


CONTENTS. 

BOOK  I. 

HONOURABLE  WOMEN  NOT  A  FEW. 
CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 
ROME  IN    THE    FOURTH    CENTURY .  .          1 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE    PALACE   ON   THE    AVENTINE 14 

CHAPTER  III. 

MELANIA : 29 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    SOCIETY   OP  MARCELLA 43 

CHAPTER  V. 

PAULA „ 65 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    MOTHER  HOUSE .  .  89 


Xi 


xii  CONTENTS. 

BOOK  II. 

THE  POPES  WHO  MADE  THE  PAPACY. 
CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 
GREGORY   THE    GREAT 119 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    MONK  HILDEBRAND 181 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE    POPE    GREGORY   VII 230 

CHAPTER    IV. 

INNOCENT    III e 307 

BOOK  III. 

LO   POPOLO:   AND  THE   TRIBUNE   OF  THE   PEOPLE. 
CHAPTER  I. 

ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY 381 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE    DELIVERER 402 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE    BUONO    STATO 428 


CONTENTS.  xiii 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PAGE 

DECLINE    AND   FALL 460 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 486 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    END   OF   THE    TRAGEDY 493 

BOOK  IV. 

THE   POPES   WHO    MADE   THE   CITY. 
CHAPTER  I. 

MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENIUS   IV.  —  NICOLAS   V.) 513 

CHAPTER   II. 

CALIXTUS   III.  —  PIUS    II.  —  PAUL    II.  —  SIXTUS  IV '552 

CHAPTER  III. 

JULIUS   II. —  LEO   X 581 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FULL-PAGE   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

POPE  GREGORY Frontispiece 

COLOSSEUM  BY  MOONLIGHT,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 37 

TEMPLE  or  VENUS  AND  RIVER  FROM  THE  COLOSSEUM  (1860),  by 

H.  P.  Riviere 73 

TEMPLE  OF  VESTA,  by  H.  P.  Riviere. Ill 

ARCH  OF  CONSTANTINE,  by  H.  P.  Riviere ,,.,..,...  153 

THE  FORUM,  by  H,  P.  Riviere , 171 

ARCH  OF  TITUS,  by  H.  P.  Riviere ,  .209 

SANTA  MARIA  MAGGIORE,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 247 

ARCH  OF  DRUSUS  (1860),  by  H.  P.  Riviere 267 

ISLAND  ON  TIBER,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 287 

THE  CAPITOL,  by  J.  Pennell 317 

PORTA  MAGGIORE,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 327 

IN  THE  CAMPAGNA  (1860),  by  H.  P.  Riviere 347 

ST.  PETER'S  AND  THE  CASTLE  OF  ST.  ANGELO,  by  II.  P.  Riviere.. 367 

APPROACH  TO  THE  CAPITOL  (1860),  by  H.  P.  Riviere 387 

THEATRE  OF  MARCELLUS,  by  J.  Pennell .407 

AQUA  FELICE,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 463 

THE  TARPEIAN  ROCK,  by  J.  Pennell , 481 

ANCIENT,  MEDIAEVAL,  AND  MODERN  ROME,  by  J.  Pennell 503 

MODERN  ROME  :  SHELLEY'S  TOMB,  by  J.  Pennell 519 

FOUNTAIN  OF  TREVI,  by  H.  P.  Riviere 527 

SANTA  MARIA  DEL  POPOLO,  by  H.  P.  Riviere , 547 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

PIAZZA  COLONNA,  by  J.  Pennell . .... 565 

OLD  ST.  PETER'S,  from  the  engraving  by  Campini 585 

MODERN  ROME  :  THE  GRAVE  OF  KEATS,  by  J.  Pennell 593 


ILLUSTRATIONS   IN   TEXT. 

THE  COLOSSEUM,  by  J.  Pennell , , . . .     1 

THE  PALATINE,  FROM  THE  AVENTINE,  by  J.  Pennell 13 

THE  RIPETTA,  by  J.  Pennell 14 

ON  THE  PALATINE,  by  J.  Pennell 27 

THE  WALLS  BY  ST.  JOHN  LATERAN,  by  J.  Pennell 29 

THE  TEMPLE  OF  VESTA,  by  J.  Pennell 42 

CHURCHES  ON  THE  AVENTINE,  by  J.  Pennell 43 

THE  STEPS  OF  THE  CAPITOL,  by  J.  Pennell 51 

THE  LATERAN  FROM  THE  AVENTINE,  by  J.  Pennell 64 

PORTICO  OF  OCTAVIA,  by  J.  Pennell 65 

TRINITA  DE'  MONTI,  by  J.  Pennell , 76 

FROM  THE  AVENTINE,  by  J.  Pennell 87 

THE  CAPITOL  FROM  THE  PALATINE,  by  J.  Pennell 89 

SAN  BARTOLOMMEO,  by  J.  Pennell 97 

ST.  PETER'S,  FROM  THE  JANICULUM,  by  J.  Pennell 103 

ST.  PETER'S,  FROM  THE  PINCIO,  by  J.  Pennell 107 

PORTA  SAN  PAOLA,  by  J.  Pennell 115 

THE  STEPS  OF  SAN  GREGORIO,  by  J.  Pennell 119 

VILLA  DE'  MEDICI,  by  J.  Pennell 133 

SAN    GREGORIO   MAGNO,    AND    ST.   JOHN    AND    ST.    PAUL,   by  J. 

Pennell 145 

THE  PIAZZA  DEL  POPOLO,  by  J.  Pennell 157 

MONTE  PINCIO,  FROM  THE  PIAZZA  DEL  POPOLO,  by  J.  Pennell. .  .167 

PONTE  MOLLE,  by  J.  Pennell , 180 

THE  PALATINE,  by  J.  Pennell 181 

PYRAMID  OF  CAIUS  CESTIUS,  by  J.  Pennell 197 

TRINITA  DE'  MONTI,  by  J.  Pennell 207 

THE  VILLA  BORGHESE,  by  J.  Pennell 220 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xvii 

PAGE 

WHERE  THE  GHETTO  STOOD,  by  J.  Pennell 228 

FROM  SAN  GREGORIO  MAGNO,  by  J.  Pennell 230 

IN  THE  VILLA  BORGHESE,  by  J.  Pennell 306 

THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  THE  TORTOISE,  by  J.  Pennell 307 

ALL  THAT  is  LEFT  OF  THE  GHETTO,  by  J.  Pennell 377 

ON  THE  TIBER,  by  J.  Pennell 381 

ON  THE  PINCIO,  by  J.  Pennell 402 

THE  LUNGARA,  by  J.  Pennell 428 

PORTA  DEL  POPOLO  (FLAMiNiAN  GATE),  by  J.  Pennell 459 

THEATRE  OF  MARCELLUS,  by  J.  Pennell 460 

THE  BORGHESE  GARDENS,  by  J.  Pennell 486 

TOMB  OF  CECILIA  METELLA,  by  J.  Pennell 493 

LETTER  WRITER,  by  J.  Pennell 510 

PIAZZA  DEL  POPOLO,  by  J.  Pennell 513 

ON  THE  PINCIO,  by  J.  Pennell 533 

IN  THE  CORSO  :  CHURCH  DOORS,  by  J.  Pennell 542 

MODERN  DEGRADATION  OF  A  PALACE,  by  J.  Pennell 552 

FOUNTAIN  OF  TREVI,  by  J.  Pennell 581 

A  BRIC-A-BRAC  SHOP,  by  J.  Pennell 600 


BOOK  I. 
HONOURABLE  WOMEN  NOT  A  FEW. 


THE  COLOSSEUM. 


BOOK  I. 
HONOURABLE  WOMEN  NOT  A  FEW. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY. 

THEEE  is  no  place  in  the  world  of  which  it  is  less 
necessary  to  attempt  description  (or  of  which  so  many 
descriptions  have  been  attempted)  than  the  once  capital  of 
that  world,  the  supreme  and  eternal  city,  the  seat  of  empire, 
the  home  of  the  conqueror,  the  greatest  human  centre  of 
power  and  influence  which  our  race  has  ever  known.  Its 
history  is  unique  and  its  position.  Twice  over  in  circum- 
stances and  by  means  as  different  as  can  be  imagined  it  has 
conquered  and  held  subject  the  world.  All, that  was  known 
to  man  in  their  age  gave  tribute  and  acknowledgment  to 

B  1 


2  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.        [CHAP. 

the  Caesars ;  and  an  ever-widening  circle,  taking  in  coun- 
tries and  races  unknown  to  the  Caesars,  have  looked  to  the 
spiritual  sovereigns  who  succeeded  them  as  to  the  first  and 
highest  of  authorities  on  earth.  The  reader  knows,  or  at 
least  is  assisted  on  all  hands  to  have  some  idea  and  concep- 
tion of  the  classical  city  —  to  be  citizens  of  which  was  the 
aim  of  the  whole  world's  ambition,  and  whose  institutions 
and  laws,  and  even  its  architecture  and  domestic  customs, 
were  the  only  rule  of  civilisation  —  with  its  noble  and 
grandiose  edifices,  its  splendid  streets,  the  magnificence  and 
largeness  of  its  life ;  while  on  the  other  hand  most  people 
are  able  to  form  some  idea  of  what  was  the  Rome  of  the 
Popes,  the  superb  yet  squalid  mediaeval  city  with  its  great 
palaces  and  its  dens  of  poverty,  and  that  conjunction  of 
exuberance  and  want  which  does  not  strike  the  eye  while 
the  bulk  of  a  population  remains  in  a  state  of  slavery.  But 
there  is  a  period  between,  which  has  not  attracted  much 
attention  from  English  writers,  and  which  the  reader  passes 
by  as  a  time  in  which  there  is  little  desirable  to  dwell  upon, 
though  it  is  in  reality  the  moment  of  transition  when  the 
old  is  about  to  be  replaced  by  the  new,  and  when  already 
the  energy  and  enthusiasm  of  a  new  influence  is  making  its 
appearance  among  the  tragic  dregs  and  abysses  of  the  past. 
An  ancient  civilisation  dying  in  the  impotence  of  luxury 
and  wealth  from  which  all  active  power  or  influence  over 
the  world  had  departed,  and  a  new  and  profound  internal 
revolt,  breaking  up  its  false  calm  from  within,  before  the 
raging  forces  of  another  rising  power  had  yet  begun  to 
thunder  at  its  gates  without — form  however  a  spectacle  full 
of  interest,  especially  when  the  scene  of  so  many  conflicts 
is  traversed  and  lighted  up  by  the  most  lifelike  figures,  and 
has  left  its  record,  both  of  good  and  evil,  in  authentic  and 
detailed  chronicles,  full  of  individual  character  and  life,  in 
which  the  men  and  women  of  the  age  stand  before  us,  occu- 
pied and  surrounded  by  circumstances  which  are  very  differ- 


i.]      ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.       3 

ent  from  our  own,  yet  linked  to  us  by  that  unfailing  unity 
of  human  life  ^and  feeling  which  makes  the  farthest  off 
foreigner  a  brother,  and  the  most  distant  of  our  primeval 
predecessors  like  a  neighbour  of  to-day. 

The  circumstances  of  Eome  in  the  middle  and  end  of  the 
fourth  century  were  singular  in  every  point  of  view.  With 
all  its  prestige  and  all  its  memories,  it  was  a  city  from  which 
power  and  the  dominant  forces  of  life  had  faded.  The  body 
was  there,  the  great  town  with  its  high  places  made  to  give 
law  and  judgment  to  the  world,  even  the  officials  and  exec- 
utors of  the  codes  which  had  dispensed  justice  throughout 
the  universe;  but  the  spirit  of  dominion  and  empire  had 
passed  away.  A  great  aristocracy,  accustomed  to  the  first 
place  everywhere,  full  of  wealth,  full  of  leisure,  remained ; 
but  with  nothing  to  do  to  justify  this  greatness,  nothing  but 
luxury,  the  prize  and  accompaniment  of  it,  now  turned  into 
its  sole  object  and  meaning.  The  patrician  class  had  grown 
by  use,  by  the  high  capability  to  fill  every  post  and  lead 
every  expedition  which  they  had  constantly  shown,  which 
was  their  original  cause  and  the  reason  of  their  existence, 
into  a  position  of  unusual  superiority  and  splendour.  But 
that  reason  had  died  away,  the  empire  had  departed  from 
them,  the  world  had  a  new  centre :  and  the  sons  of  the  men 
who  had  conducted  all  the  immense  enterprises  of  Kome 
were  left  behind  with  the  burden  of  their  great  names,  and 
the  weight  of  their  great  wealth,  and  nothing  to  do  but 
to  enjoy  and  amuse  themselves :  no  vocations  to  fulfil,  no 
important  public  functions  to  occupy  their  time  and  their 
powers.  Such  a  position  is  perhaps  the  most  dreadful  that 
can  come  to  any  class  in  the  history  of  a  nation.  Great  and 
irresponsible  wealth,  the  supremacy  of  high  place,  without 
those  bonds  of  practical  affairs  which,  in  the  case  of  all 
rulers  —  even  of  estates  or  of  factories  —  preserve  the  equi- 
librium of  humanity,  are  instruments  of  degradation  rather 
than  of  elevation.  To  have  something  to  do  for  it,  some- 


4  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

thing  to  do  with  it,  is  the  condition  which  alone  makes 
boundless  wealth  wholesome.  And  this  had  altogether 
failed  in  the  imperial  city.  Pleasure  and  display  had  taken 
the  place  of  work  and  duty.  Rome  had  no  longer  any  im- 
perial affairs  in  hand.  Her  day  was  over :  the  absence  of  a 
court  and  all  its  intrigues  might  have  been  little  loss  to  any 
community  —  but  that  those  threads  of  universal  dominion 
which  had  hitherto  occupied  them  had  been  transferred  to 
other  hands,  and  that  all  the  struggles,  the  great  questions, 
the  causes,  the  pleas,  the  ordinances  of  the  world  were  now 
decided  and  given  forth  at  Constantinople,  was  ruin  to  the 
once  masters  of  the  world.  It  was  worse  than  destruction, 
a  more  dreadful  overthrow  than  anything  that  the  Goths 
and  barbarians  could  bring  —  not  death  which  brings  a  sat- 
isfaction of  all  necessities  in  making  an  end  of  them  —  but 
that  death  in  life  which  fills  men's  blood  with  cold. 

The  pictures  left  us  of  this  condition  of  affairs  do  indeed 
chill  the  blood.  It  is  natural  that  there  should  be  a  certain 
amount  of  exaggeration  in  them.  We  read  daily  in  our  own 
contemporary  annals,  records  of  society  of  which  we  are  per- 
fectly competent  to  judge,  that  though  true  to  fact  in  many 
points,  they  give  a  picture  too  dark  in  all  its  shadows,  too 
garish  in  its  lights,  to  afford  a  just  view  of  the  state  of  any 
existing  condition  of  things.  Contemporaries  know  how 
much  to  receive  and  how  much  to  reject,  and  are  apt  to 
smile  at  the  possibility  of  any  permanent  impression  upon 
the  face  of  history  being  made  by  lights  and  darks  beyond 
the  habit  of  nature.  But  yet  when  every  allowance  has  been 
made,  the  contemporary  pictures  of  Rome  at  this  unhappy 
period  leave  an  impression  on  the  mind  which  is  not  contra- 
dicted but  supported  and  enforced  by  the  incidents  of  the 
time  and  the  course  of  history.  The  populace,  which  had 
for  ages  been  fed  and  nourished  upon  the  bread  of  public 
doles  and  those  entertainments  of  ferocious  gaiety  which 
deadened  every  higher  sense,  had  sunk  into  complete  de- 


i.]      ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.       5 

basement.  Honest  work  and  honest  purpose,  or  any  hope 
of  improving  their  own  position,  elevating  themselves  or 
training  their  children,  do  not  seem  to  have  existed  among 
them.  A  half -ludicrous  detail,  which  reminds  us  that  the 
true  Roman  had  always  a  trifle  of  pedantry  in  his  pride,  is 
noted  with  disgust  and  disdain  even  by  serious  writers  — 
which  is  that  the  common  people  bore  no  longer  their  proper 
names,  but  were  known  among  each  other  by  nicknames, 
such  as  those  of  Cabbage-eaters,  Sausage-mongers,  and  other 
coarse  familiar  vulgarisms.  This  might  be  pardoned  to  the 
crowd  which  spent  its  idle  days  at  the  circus  or  spectacle, 
and  its  nights  on  the  benches  in  the  Colosseum  or  in  the 
porch  of  a  palace;  but  it  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  de- 
basement of  a  populace  which  lived  for  amusement  alone, 
picking  up  the  miserable  morsels  which  kept  it  alive  from 
any  chance  or  tainted  source,  without  work  to  do  or  hope  of 
amelioration.  They  formed  the  shouting,  hoarse  accompa- 
niment of  every  pageant,  they  swarmed  on  the  lower  seats  of 
every  amphitheatre,  howling  much  criticism  as  well  as  bois- 
terous applause,  and  keeping  in  fear,  and  disgusted  yet 
forced  compliance  with  their  coarse  exactions,  the  players 
and  showmen  who  supplied  their  lives  with  an  object. 
According  to  all  the  representations  that  have  reached  us, 
nothing  more  degraded  than  this  populace  —  encumbering 
every  portico  and  marble  stair,  swarming  over  the  benches 
of  the  Colosseum,  basking  in  filth  and  idleness  in  the  brill- 
iant sun  of  Rome,  or  seeking,  among  the  empty  glories  of 
a  triumphal  age  gone  by,  a  lazy  shelter  from  it  —  has  ever 
been  known. 

The  higher  classes  suffered  in  their  way  as  profoundly, 
and  with  a  deeper  consciousness,  from  the  same  debasing 
influences  of  stagnation.  The  descriptions  of  their  useless 
life  of  luxury  are  almost  too  extravagant  to  quote.  "  A  loose 
silken  robe,"  says  the  critic  and  historian  of  the  time, 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  speaking  of  a  Roman  noble,  —  "  for 


6  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

a  toga  of  the  lightest  tissue  would  have  been  too  heavy  for 
him  —  linen  so  transparent  that  the  air  blew  through  it, 
fans  and  parasols  to  protect  him  from  the  light,  a  troop  of 
eunuchs  always  round  him."  This  was  the  appearance  and 
costume  of  a  son  of  the  great  and  famous  senators  of  Rome. 
"  When  he  was  not  at  the  bath,  or  at  the  circus  to  maintain 
the  cause  of  some  charioteer,  or  to  inspect  some  new  horses, 
he  lay  half  asleep  upon  a  luxurious  couch  in  great  rooms 
paved  with  marble,  panelled  with  mosaic."  The  luxurious 
heat  implied,  which  makes  the  freshness  of  the  marble,  the 
thinness  of  the  linen,  so  desirable,  as  in  a  picture  of  Mr. 
Alma  Taderna's,  bids  us  at  the  same  time  pause  in  receiv- 
ing the  whole  of  this  description  as  unquestionable ;  for 
Rome  has  its  seasons  in  which  vast  chambers  paved  with 
marble  are  no  longer  agreeable,  though  the  manners  and 
utterances  of  the  race  still  tend  to  a  complete  ignoring  of 
this  other  side  of  the  picture :  but  yet  no  doubt  its  general 
features  are  true. 

When  this  Sybarite  went  out  it  was  upon  a  lofty  chariot, 
where  he  reclined  negligently,  showing  off  himself,  his  curled 
and  perfumed  locks,  his  robes,  with  their  wonderful  em- 
broideries and  tissues  of  silk  and  gold,  to  the  admiration  of 
the  world ;  his  horses7  harness  were  covered  with  ornaments 
of  gold,  his  coachman  armed  with  a  golden  wand  instead  of 
a  whip,  and  the  whole  equipage  followed  by  a  procession  of 
attendants,  slaves,  freedmen,  eunuchs,  down  to  the  knaves 
of  the  kitchen,  the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  to 
give  importance  to  the  retinue,  which  pushed  along  through 
the  streets  with  all  the  brutality  which  is  the  reverse  side 
of  senseless  display,  pushing  citizens  and  passers-by  out  of 
the  way.  The  dinner  parties  of  the  evening  were  equally 
childish  in  their  extravagance:  the  tables  covered  with 
strange  dishes,  monsters  of  the  sea  and  of  the  mountains, 
fishes  and  birds  of  unknown  kinds  and  unequalled  size. 
The  latter  seems  to  have  been  a  special  subject  of  pride,  for 


i.]      ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.       7 

we  are  told  of  the  servants  bringing  scales  to  weigh  them, 
and  notaries  crowding  round  with  their  tablets  and  styles 
to  record  the  weight.  After  the  feast  came  a  "  hydraulic 
organ,"  and  other  instruments  of  corresponding  magnitude, 
to  fill  the  great  hall  with  resounding  music,  and  pantomim- 
ical  plays  and  dances  to  enliven  the  dulness  of  the  luxuri- 
ous spectators  on  their  couches  —  "  women  with  long  hair, 
who  might  have  married  and  given  subjects  to  the  state," 
were  thus  employed,  to  the  indignation  of  the  critic. 

This  chronicler  of  folly  and  bad  manners  would  not  be 
human  if  he  omitted  the  noble  woman  of  Rome  from  his 
picture.  Her  rooms  full  of  obsequious  attendants,  slaves, 
and  eunuchs,  half  of  her  time  was  occupied  by  the  mon- 
strous toilette  which  annulled  all  natural  charms  to  give  to 
the  Society  beauty  a  fictitious  and  artificial  display  of  red 
and  white,  of  painted  eyelids,  tortured  hair,  and  extravagant 
dress.  An  authority  still  more  trenchant  than  the  heathen 
historian,  Jerome,  describes  even  one  of  the  noble  ladies 
who  headed  the  Christian  society  of  Rome  as  spending  most 
of  the  day  before  the  mirror.  Like  the  ladies  of  Venice  in 
a  later  age,  these  women,  laden  with  ornaments,  attired  in 
cloth  of  gold,  and  with  shoes  that  crackled  under  their 
feet  with  the  stiffness  of  metallic  decorations,  were  almost 
incapacitated  from  walking,  even  with  the  support  of  their 
attendants;  and  a  life  so  accoutred  was  naturally  spent 
in  the  display  of  the  charms  and  wealth  thus  painfully  set 
forth. 

The  fairer  side  of  the  picture,  the  revolt  of  the  higher 
nature  from  such  a  life,  brings  us  into  the  very  heart  of 
this  society :  and  nothing  can  be  more  curious  than  the 
gradual  penetration  of  a  different  and  indeed  sharply  con- 
trary sentiment,  the  impulse  of  asceticism  and  the  rudest 
personal  self-deprivation,  amid  a  community  spoilt  by  such 
a  training,  yet  not  incapable  of  disgust  and  impatience  with 
the  very  luxury  which  had  seemed  essential  to  its  being. 


THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

The  picturesqueness  and  attraction  of  the  picture  lies  here, 
as  in  so  many  cases,  chiefly  on  the  women's  side. 

It  is  necessary  to  note,  however,  the  curious  mixture 
which  existed  in  this  Koman  society,  where  Christianity  as 
a  system  was  already  strong,  and  the  high  officials  of  the 
Church  were  beginning  to  take  gradually  and  by  slow 
degrees  the  places  abandoned  by  the  functionaries  of  the 
empire.  Though  the  hierarchy  was  already  established, 
and  the  Bishop  of  Rome  had  assumed  a  special  importance 
in  the  Church,  Paganism  still  held  in  the  high  places  that 
sway  of  the  old  economy  giving  place  to  the  new,  which  is 
at  once  so  desperate  and  so  nerveless  —  impotence  and 
bitterness  mingling  with  the  false  tolerance  of  cynicism. 
The  worship  of  the  gods  had  dropped  into  a  survival  of 
certain  habits  of  mind  and  life,  to  which  some  clung  with 
the  angry  revulsion  of  terror  against  a  new  revolutionary 
power  at  first  despised :  and  some  held  with  the  loose  grasp 
of  an  imaginative  and  poetical  system,  and  some  with  a 
sense  of  the  intellectual  superiority  of  art  and  philosophy 
over  the  arguments  and  motives  that  moved  the  crowd. 
Life  had  ebbed  away  from  these  religions  of  the  past.  The 
fictitious  attempt  of  Julian  to  re-establish  the  worship  of  the 
gods,  and  bring  new  blood  into  the  exhausted  veins  of  the 
mythological  system,  had  in  reality  given  the  last  proof  of 
its  extinction  as  a  power  in  the  world :  but  still  it  remained 
lingering  out  its  last,  holding  a  place,  sometimes  dignified 
by  a  gleam  of  noble  manners  and  the  graces  of  intellectual 
life  —  and  often,  it  must  be  allowed,  justified  by  the  failure 
of  the  Church  to  embody  that  purity  and  elevation  which  its 
doctrines,  but  scarcely  its  morals  or  life,  professed.  Thus 
the  faith  in  Christ,  often  real,  but  very  faulty  —  and  the 
faith  in  Apollo,  almost  always  fictitious,  but  sometimes 
dignified  and  superior  —  existed  side  by  side.  The  father 
might  hold  the  latter  with  a  superb  indifference  to  its  rites, 
and  a  contemptuous  tolerance  for  its  opponents,  while  the 


i.]      ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.       9 

mother  held  the  first  with  occasional  hot  impulses  of  devo- 
tion, and  performances  of  penance  for  the  pardon  of  those 
worldly  amusements  and  dissipations  to  which  she  returned 
with  all  the  more  zest  when  her  vigils  and  prayers  were 
over. 

This  conjunction  of  two  systems  so  opposite  in  every 
impulse,  proceeding  from  foundations  so  absolutely  contrary 
to  each  other,  could  not  fail  to  have  an  extraordinary  effect 
upon  the  minds  of  the  generations  moved  by  it,  and  affords, 
I  think,  an  explanation  of  some  events  very  difficult  to 
explain  on  ordinary  principles,  and  particularly  the  aban- 
donment of  what  would  appear  the  most  unquestionable 
duties,  by  some  of  the  personages,  especially  the  women 
whose  histories  and  manners  fill  this  chapter  of  the  great 
records  of  Rome.  Some  of  them  deserted  their  children  to 
bury  themselves  in  the  deserts,  to  withdraw  to  the  moun- 
tains, placing  leagues  of  land  and  sea  between  themselves 
and  their  dearest  duties  —  why  ?  the  reader  asks.  At  the 
bidding  of  a  priest,  at  the  selfish  impulse  of  that  desire  to 
save  their  own  souls,  which  in  our  own  day  at  least  has 
come  to  mean  a  degrading  motive  —  is  the  general  answer. 
It  would  not  be  difficult,  however,  to  paint  on  the  other  side 
a  picture  of  the  struggle  with  the  authorities  of  her  family 
for  the  training  of  a  son,  for  the  marriage  of  a  daughter, 
from  which  a  woman  might  shrink  with  a  sense  of  impo- 
tence, knowing  the  prestige  of  the  noble  guardian  against 
whom  she  would  have  to  contend,  and  all  the  forces  of 
family  pride,  of  tradition  and  use  and  wont,  that  would  be 
arrayed  against  her.  Better  perhaps,  the  mother  might 
think,  to  abandon  that  warfare,  to  leave  the  conflict  for 
which  she  was  not  strong  enough,  than  to  lose  the  love  of 
her  child  as  well,  and  become  to  him  the  emblem  of  an 
opposing  faction  attempting  to  turn  him  from  those  delights 
of  youth  which  the  hereditary  authority  of  his  house  encour- 
aged instead  of  opposing.  It  is  difficult  perhaps  for  the 


10  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

historians  to  take  such  motives  into  consideration,  but  I 
think  the  student  of  human  nature  may  feel  them  to  be 
worth  a  thought,  and  receive  them  as  some  justification,  or 
at  least  apology,  for  the  actions  of  some  of  the  Roman 
women  who  fill  the  story  of  the  time. 

Unfortunately  it  is  not  possible  to  leave  out  the  Church 
in  Rome  when  we  collect  the  details  of  depravity  and  folly 
in  Society.  One  cannot  but  feel  how  robust  is  the  faith 
which  goes  back  to  these  ages  for  guidance  and  example 
when  one  sees  the  image  in  St.  Jerome's  pages  of  a  period  so 
early  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  "  Could  ye  not  watch 
with  me  one  hour  ?  "  our  Lord  said  to  the  chosen  disciples, 
His  nearest  friends  and  followers,  in  the  moment  of  His 
own  exceeding  anguish,  with  a  reproach  so  sorrowful,  yet  so 
conscious  of  the  weakness  of  humanity,  that  it  silences 
every  excuse.  We  may  say,  for  a  poor  four  hundred  years 
could  not  the  Church  keep  the  impress  of  His  teaching,  the 
reality  of  the  faith  of  those  who  had  themselves  fallen  and 
fainted,  yet  found  grace  to  live  and  die  for  their  Master  ? 
But  four  centuries  are  a  long  time,  and  men  are  but  men 
even  with  the  inheritance  of  Christians.  They  belonged  to 
their  race,  their  age,  and  the  manifold  influences  which  mod- 
ify in  the  crowd  everything  it  believes  or  wishes.  And 
they  were  exposed  to  many  temptations  which  were  doubly 
strong  in  that  world  to  which  by  birth  and  training  they  be- 
longed. How  is  an  ordinary  man  to  despise  wealth  in  the 
midst  of  a  society  corrupted  by  it,  and  in  which  it  is  su- 
preme ?  how  learn  to  be  indifferent  to  rank  and  prestige  in 
a  city  where  without  these  every  other  claim  was  trampled 
under  foot  ?  "  The  virtues  of  the  primitive  Church,"  says 
Villemain  of  a  still  later  period,  "  had  been  under  the  guard 
of  poverty  and  persecution :  they  were  weak  in  success  and 
triumph.  Enthusiasm  became  less  pure,  the  rules  of  life 
less  severe.  In  the  always  increasing  crowd  of  proselytes 
were  many  unworthy  persons,  who  turned  to  Christianity 


i.]      ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.      11 

for  reasons  of  ambition  and  self-interest,  to  make  way  at 
Court,  to  appear  faithful  to  the  emperor.  The  Church,  en- 
riched at  once  by  the  spoil  of  the  temples  and  the  offerings 
of  the  Christian  crowd,  began  to  clothe  itself  in  profane  mag- 
nificence." Those  who  attained  the  higher  clerical  honours 
were  sure,  according  to  the  evidence  of  Ammianus,  "  of 
being  enriched  by  the  offerings  of  the  Roman  ladies,  and 
drove  forth  like  noblemen  in  lofty  chariots,  clothed  magnifi- 
cently, and  sat  down  at  tables  worthy  of  kings."  The 
Church,  endowed  in  an  earlier  period  by  converts,  who  of- 
fered sometimes  all  their  living  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
community  which  gave  them  home  and  refuge,  had  contin- 
ued to  receive  the  gifts  of  the  pious  after  the  rules  of  ordi- 
nary life  regained  their  force ;  and  now  when  she  had  yielded 
to  a  great  extent  to  the  prevailing  temptations  of  the  age, 
found  a  large  means  of  endowment  in  the  gifts  of  deathbed 
repentance  and  the  weakness  of  dying  penitents,  of  which 
she  was  reputed  to  take  large  advantage:  wealth  grew 
within  her  borders,  and  luxury  with  it,  according  to  the 
example  of  surrounding  society.  It  is  Jerome  himself  who 
reports  the  saying  of  one  of  the  highest  of  Roman  officials 
to  Bishop  Damasus.  "If  you  will  undertake  to  make  me 
Bishop  of  Rome,  I  will  be  a  Christian  to-morrow."  Not 
even  the  highest  place  in  the  Government  was  so  valuable 
and  so  great.  It  is  Jerome  also  who  traces  for  us  —  the 
fierce  indignation  of  his  natural  temper,  mingling  with  an 
involuntary  perception  of  the  ludicrous  side  of  the  picture 
—  a  popular  young  priest  of  his  time,  whose  greatest  solici- 
tude was  to  have  perfumed  robes,  a  well  fitting  shoe,  hair 
beautifully  curled,  and  fingers  glittering  with  jewels,  and 
who  walked  on  tip-toe  lest  he  should  soil  his  feet. 

"  What  are  these  men  ?  To  those  who  see  them  pass  they  are  more 
like  bridegrooms  than  priests.  Some  among  them  devote  their  life  and 
energies  to  the  single  object  of  knowing  the  names,  the  houses,  the 
habits,  the  disposition  of  all  the  ladies  in  Rome.  I  will  sketch  for  you, 
dear  Eustochiuin,  in  a  few  lines,  the  day's  work  of  one  of  them,  great 


12  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

in  the  arts  of  which  I  speak,  that  by  means  of  the  master  you  may  the 
more  easily  recognise  his  disciples. 

"  Our  hero  rises  with  the  sun :  he  regulates  the  order  of  his  visits, 
studies  the  shortest  ways,  and  arrives  before  he  is  wanted,  almost  be- 
fore his  friends  are  awake.  If  he  perceives  anything  that  strikes  his 
fancy,  a  pretty  piece  of  furniture  or  an  elegant  marble,  he  gazes  at  it, 
praises  it,  turns  it  over  in  his  hands,  and  grieves  that  he  has  not  one 
like  it — thus  extorting  rather  than  obtaining  the  object  of  his  desires; 
for  what  woman  would  not  hesitate  to  offend  the  universal  gossip  of 
the  town  ?  Temperance,  modesty  (castitas),  and  fasting  are  his  sworn 
enemies.  He  smells  out  a  feast  and  loves  savoury  meats. 

"  Wherever  one  goes  one  is  sure  to  meet  him ;  he  is  always  there 
before  you.  He  knows  all  the  news,  proclaims  it  in  an  authoritative 
tone,  and  is  better  informed  than  any  one  else  can  be.  The  horses 
which  carry  him  to  the  four  quarters  of  Rome  in  pursuit  of  this  honest 
task  are  the  finest  you  can  see  anywhere ;  you  would  say  he  was  the 
brother  of  that  King  of  Thrace  known  in  story  by  the  speed  of  his 
coursers. 

"This  man,"  adds  the  implacable  satirist  in  another  letter,  "was 
born  in  the  deepest  poverty,  brought  up  under  the  thatch  of  a  peasant's 
cottage,  with  scarcely  enough  of  black  bread  and  millet  to  satisfy  the 
cravings  of  his  appetite  ;  yet  now  he  is  fastidious  and  hard  to  please, 
disdaining  honey  and  the  finest  flour.  An  expert  in  the  science  of  the 
table,  he  knows  every  kind  of  fish  by  name,  and  whence  come  the  best 
oysters,  and  what  district  produces  the  birds  of  finest  savour.  He 
cares  only  for  what  is  rare  and  unwholesome.  In  another  kind  of 
vice  he  is  not  less  remarkable  ;  his  mania  is  to  lie  in  wait  for  old  men 
and  women  without  children.  He  besieges  their  beds  when  they  are 
ill,  serves  them  in  the  most  disgusting  offices,  more  humble  and  servile 
than  any  nurse.  When  the  doctor  enters  he  trembles,  asking  with  a 
faltering  voice  how  the  patient  is,  if  there  is  any  hope  of  saving  him. 
If  there  is  any  hope,  if  the  disease  is  cured,  the  priest  disappears  with 
regrets  for  his  loss  of  time,  cursing  the  wretched  old  man  who  insists 
on  living  to  be  as  old  as  Methusalem." 

The  last  accusation,  which  has  been  the  reproach  of-  the 
Church  in  many  different  ages,  had  just  been  specially  con- 
demned by  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Valentinian  I.,  declaring 
null  and  void  all  legacies  made  to  priests,  a  law  which  called 
forth  Jerome's  furious  denunciation,  not  of  itself,  but  of  the 
abuse  which  called  it  forth.  This  was  a  graver  matter  than 
the  onslaught  upon  the  curled  darlings  of  the  priesthood, 
more  like  bridegrooms  than  priests,  who  carried  the  news 
from  boudoir  to  boudoir,  and  laid  their  entertainers  under 
contribution  for  the  bibelots  and  ancient  bric-a-brac  which 
their  hearts  desired.  Thus  wherever  the  eye  turned  there 


I.] 


ROME  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY. 


13 


was  nothing  but  luxury  and  the  love  of  luxury,  foolish  dis- 
play, extravagance  and  emulation  in  all  the  arts  of  prodigal- 
ity, a  life  without  gravity,  without  serious  occupation,  with 
nothing  in  it  to  justify  the  existence  of  those  human  creat- 
ures standing  between  earth  and  heaven,  and  capable  of  so 
many  better  things.  The  revulsion,  a  revulsion  inspired  by 
disgust  and  not  without  extravagance  in  its  new  way,  was 
sure  to  come. 


THE  PALATINE,  FROM  THE  AVENTINE. 


n. 


THE   RIPETTA. 


CHAPTER   II. 


THE    PALACE    ON    THE    AVENTINE. 

THE  strong  recoil  of  human  nature  from  those  fatal 
elements  which  time  after  time  have  threatened  the 
destruction  of  all  society  is  one  of  the  noblest  things  in 
history,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  divine  in  life.  There  are 
evidences  that  it  exists  even  in  the  most  wicked  individuals, 
and  it  very  evidently  comes  uppermost  in  every  common- 
wealth from  century  to  century  to  save  again  and  again 
from  utter  debasement  a  community  or  a  nation.  When 
depravity  becomes  the  rule  instead  of  the  exception,  and 
sober  principle  appears  on  the  point  of  yielding  altogether  to 
the  whirl  of  folly  or  the  thirst  of  self-indulgence,  then  it 
may  always  be  expected  that  some  ember  of  divine  indigna- 
tion, some  thrill  of  high  disgust  with  the  miserable  satisfac- 
tions of  the  world  will  kindle  in  one  quarter  or  another  and 

14 


CH.  ii.]   THE  PALACE  ON  THE  AVENTINE.       15 

set  light  to  a  thousand  smouldering  fires  over  all  the  face  of 
the  earth.  It  is  one  of  the  highest  evidences  of  that  charter 
of  our  being  which  is  our  most  precious  possession,  the  reflec- 
tion of  that  image  of  God  which  amid  all  degradations  still 
holds  its  place  in  human  nature,  and  will  not  be  destroyed. 
We  may  mourn  indeed  that  so  short  a  span  of  centuries  had 
so  effaced  the  recollection  of  the  brightest  light  that  ever 
shone  among  men,  as  to  make  the  extravagance  of  a  human 
revulsion  and  revolution  necessary  in  order  to  preserve  and 
restore  the  better  life  of  Christendom.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  our  salvation  as  a  race  that  such  revolutions,  however 
imperfect  they  may  be  in  themselves,  are  sure  to  come. 

This  revulsion  from  vice,  degradation,  and  evil  of  every 
kind,  public  and  personal,  had  already  come  with  the  ut- 
most excess  of  self-punishment  and  austerity  in  the  East, 
where  already  the  deserts  were  mined  with  caverns  and 
holes  in  the  sand,  to  which  hermits  and  coenobites,  the  one 
class  scarcely  less  exalted  in  religious  passion  and  suffering 
than  the  other,  had  escaped  from  the  current  of  evil  which 
they  did  not  feel  themselves  capable  of  facing,  and  lived 
and  starved  and  agonised  for  the  salvation  of  their  own  souls 
and  for  a  world  lying  in  wickedness.  The  fame  of  the 
Thebaid  and  its  saints  and  martyrs,  slowly  making  itself 
known  through  the  great  distances  and  silences,  had  already 
breathed  over  the  world,  when  Athanasius,  driven  by  perse- 
cution from  his  see  and  his  country,  came  to  Eome,  accom- 
panied by  two  of  the  monks  whose  character  was  scarcely 
understood  as  yet  in  the  West,  and  bringing  with  him  his 
own  book,  the  life  of  St.  Antony  of  the  desert,  a  work  which 
had  as  great  an  effect  in  that  time  as  the  most  popular  of 
publications,  spread  over  the  world  in  thousands  of  copies, 
could  have  now.  It  puzzles  the  modern  reader  to  think 
how  a  book  should  thus  have  moved  the  world  and  revolu- 
tionised hundreds  of  lives,  while  it  existed  only  in  manu- 
script and  every  example  had  to  be  carefully  and  tediously 


16  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

copied  before  it  could  touch  even  those  who  were  wealthy 
enough  to  secure  themselves  such  a  luxury.  What  readings 
in  common,  what  earnest  circles  of  auditors,  what  rapt 
intense  hanging  upon  the  lips  of  the  reader,  there  must  have 
been  before  any  work,  even  the  most  sacred,  penetrated  to 
the  crowd !  —  but  to  us  no  doubt  the  process  seems  more 
slo\y  and  difficult  than  it  really  was  when  scribes  were  to  be 
found  everywhere,  and  manuscripts  were  treated  with  rev- 
erence and  respect.  When  Athanasius  found  refuge  in 
Eome,  which  was  during  the  pontificate,  or  rather  —  for  the 
full  papal  authority  had  as  yet  been  claimed  by  no  one  — 
the  primacy  —  of  Liberius,  and  about  the  year  341,  he  was 
received  by  all  that  was  best  in  Rome  with  great  hospitality 
and  sympathy.  Rome  so  far  as  it  was  Christian  was  entirely 
orthodox,  the  Arian  heresy  having  gained  no  part  of  the 
Christian  society  there  —  and  a  man  of  genius  and  imposing 
character,  who  brought  into  that  stagnant  atmosphere  the 
breath  of  a  larger  world,  who  had  shared  the  councils  of  the 
emperor  and  lived  in  the  cells  of  Egypt  —  an  orator,  a 
traveller,  an  exile,  with  every  kind  of  interest  attaching  to 
him,  was  such  a  visitor  as  seldom  appeared  in  the  city 
deserted  by  empire.  Something  like  the  man  who  nine 
centuries  later  went  about  the  Italian  streets  with  the  signs 
upon  him  of  one  who  had  been  through  heaven  and  hell, 
the  Eastern  bishop  must  have  appeared  to  the  languid 
citizens,  with  the  brown  of  the  desert  still  on  his  cheeks, 
yet  something  of  the  air  of  a  courtly  prelate,  a  friend  of 
princes ;  while  his  attendants,  one  with  all  the  wildness  of 
a  hermit  from  the  desert  in  his  eyes  and  aspect,  in  the 
unfamiliar  robe  and  cowl  —  and  the  other  mild  and  young 
like  the  ideal  youth,  shy  and  simple  as  a  girl  —  were  won- 
derful apparitions  in  the  fatigued  and  blas6  society,  which 
longed  above  everything  for  something  new,  something 
real,  among  all  the  mocks  and  shows  of  their  impotent 
life. 


ii.]  THE  PALACE   ON  THE   AVENTINE.  17 

One  of  the  houses  in  which  Athanasius  and  his  monks 
were  most  welcome  was  the  palace  of  a  noble  widow, 
Albina,  who  lived  the  large  and  luxurious  life  of  her  class 
in  the  perfect  freedom  of  a  Roman  matron,  Christian,  yet 
with  no  idea  in  her  mind  of  retirement  from  the  world,  or 
renunciation  of  its  pleasures.  A  woman  of  a  more  or  less 
instructive  mind  and  lively  intelligence,  she  received  with 
the  greatest  interest  and  pleasure  these  strangers  who  had 
so  much  to  tell,  the  great  bishop  flying  from  his  ene- 
mies, the  monks  from  the  desert.  That  she  and  her  circle 
gathered  round  him  with  that  rapt  and  flattering  attention 
which  not  the  most  abstracted  saint  any  more  than  the 
sternest  general  can  resist,  is  evident  from  the  story,  and  it 
throws  a  gleam  of  softer  light  upon  the  impassioned  theo- 
logian who  stood  fast,  "  I,  Athanasius,  against  the  world  " 
for  that  mysterious  splendour  of  the  Trinity,  against  which 
the  heretical  East  had  risen.  In  the  Roman  lady's  with- 
drawingroom,  in  his  dark  and  flowing  Eastern  robes,  we 
find  him  amid  the  eager  questionings  of  the  women,  de- 
scribing to  them  the  strange  life  of  the  desert  which  it  was 
such  a  wonder  to  hear  of  —  the  evensong  that  rose  as  from 
every  crevice  of  the  earth,  while  the  Egyptian  after-glow 
burned  in  one  great  circle  of  colour  round  the  vast  globe 
of  sky,  diffusing  an  illumination  weird  and  mystic  over  the 
fantastic  rocks  and  dark  openings  where  the  singers  lived 
unseen.  What  a  picture  to  be  set  before  that  soft,  eager 
circle,  half  rising  from  silken  couches,  clothed  with  tissues 
of  gold,  blazing  with  jewels,  their  delicate  cheeks  glow- 
ing in  artificial  red  and  white,  their  crisped  and  curled 
tresses  surmounted  by  the  fantastic  towering  headdress 
which  weighed  them  down ! 

Among  the  ladies  was  the  child  of  the  house,  the  little 
girl  who  was  her  mother's  excuse  for  retaining  the  free- 
dom of  her  widowhood,  Marcella :  a  thoughtful  and  pen- 
sive child,  devouring  all  these  wonderful  tales,  listening 


18  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  everything  and  laying  up  a  store  of  silent  resolutions 
and  fancies  in  her  heart.  Her  elder  sister  Asella  would 
seem  to  have  already  secluded  herself  in  precocious  devo- 
tion from  the  family,  or  at  least  is  not  referred  to.  The 
story  which  touched  the  general  mind  of  the  time  with  so 
strange  and  strong  an  enthusiasm,  fell  into  the  virgin  soil 
of  this  young  spirit  like  the  seed  of  a  new  life.  But  the 
little  Roman  maiden  was  no  ascetic.  She  had  evidently 
no  impulse,  as  some  young  devotees  have  had,  to  set  out 
barefoot  in  search  of  suffering.  When  Athanasius  left 
Eome,  he  left  in  the  house  which  had  received  him  so 
kindly  his  life  of  St.  Antony,  the  first  copy  which  had  been 
seen  in  the  Western  world.  This  manuscript,  written  per- 
haps by  the  hand  of  one  of  those  wonderful  monks,  the 
strangest  figures  in  her  luxurious  world  whom  Marcella 
knew,  became  the  treasure  of  her  youth.  Such  a  pres- 
ent, at  such  a  time,  was  enough  to  occupy  the  visionary 
silence  of  a  girl's  life,  often  so  full  of  dreams  unknown 
and  unsearchable  even  to  her  nearest  surroundings.  She 
went  through  however  the  usual  routine  of  a  young  lady's 
life  in  Rome.  Madame  Albina  the  mother,  though  full  of 
interest  and  curiosity  in  respect  to  all  things  intellectual 
and  Christian,  held  still  more  dearly  a  mother's  natural 
desire  to  see  her  only  remaining  child  nobly  married  and 
established  in  the  splendour  and  eminence  to  which  she 
was  born.  We  are  told  that  Marcella  grew  up  to  be  one 
of  the  beauties  of  Rome,  but  as  this  is  an  inalienable  quali- 
fication of  all  these  beautiful  souls,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
believe  that  the  "insignem  decorem  corporis"  meant  any 
extraordinary  distinction.  She  carried  out  at  all  events 
her  natural  fate  and  married  a  rich  and  noble  husband,  of 
whom  however  we  know  no  details,  except  that  he  died 
some  months  after,  leaving  her  without  child  or  tie  to  the 
ordinary  life  of  the  world,  in  all  the  freedom  of  widow- 
hood, at  a  very  early  age. 


ii.]      THE  PALACE  ON  THE  AVENTINE.       19 

Thus  placed  in  full  command  of  her  fate,  she  never  seems 
to  have  hesitated  as  to  what  she  should  do  with  herself. 
She  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  assailed  by  many  new  suit- 
ors, among  whom  her  historian,  who  is  no  other  than  St. 
Jerome  himself,  makes  special  mention  of  the  exceptionally 
wealthy  Cerealis  ("whose  name  is  great  among  the  con- 
suls "),  and  who  was  so  splendid  a  suitor  that  the  fact  that 
he  was  old  scarcely  seems  to  have  told  against  him.  Mar- 
cella's  refusal  of  this  great  match  and  of  all  the  others 
offered  to  her,  offended  and  alienated  her  friends  and  even 
her  mother,  and  there  followed  a  moment  of  pain  and  per- 
plexity in  her  life.  She  is  said  to  have  made  a  sacrifice  of 
a  part  of  her  possessions  to  relatives  to  whom,  failing  her- 
self, it  fell  to  keep  up  the  continuance  of  the  family  name, 
hoping  thus  to  secure  their  tolerance.  And  she  acquired 
the  reputation  of  an  eccentric,  and  probably  of  a  poseuse,  so 
general  in  all  times  when  a  young  woman  forsakes  the 
beaten  way,  as  she  had  done  by  giving  up  the  ridiculous 
fashions  and  toilettes  of  the  time,  putting  aside  the  rouge 
and  antimony,  the  disabling  splendour  of  cloth  of  gold, 
and  assuming  a  simple  dress  of  a  dark  colour,  a  thing  which 
shocked  her  generation  profoundly.  The  gossip  rose  and 
flew  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  the  marble  salons  where 
the  Roman  ladies  languished  for  a  new  subject,  or  in  the 
ante-rooms,  where  young  priests  and  deacons  awaited  or 
forestalled  the  awakening  of  their  patronesses.  It  might 
be  the  Hotel  E/ambouillet  of  which  we  are  reading,  and  a 
fine  lady  taking  refuge  at  Port  Eoyal  who  was  being  dis- 
cussed and  torn  to  pieces  in  those  antique  palaces.  What 
was  the  meaning  that  lay  beneath  that  brown  gown  ?  Was 
it  some  unavowed  disappointment,  or,  more  exciting  still, 
some  secret  intrigue,  some  low-placed  love  which  she  dared 
not  acknowledge  ?  Withdrawn  into  a  villa  had  she,  into 
the  solitude  of  a  suburban  garden,  hid  from  every  eye  ?  and 
who  then  was  the  companion  of  Marcella's  solitude  ?  The 


20  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ladies  who  discussed  her  had  small  faith  in  austerities,  nor 
in  the  desire  of  a  young  and  attractive  woman  to  live  alto- 
gether alone. 

It  is  very  likely  that  Marcella  herself,  as  well  as  her 
critics,  soon  began  to  feel  that  the  mock  desert  into  which 
she  had  made  the  gardens  of  her  villa  was  indeed  a  ficti- 
tious way  of  living  the  holy  life,  and  the  calumny  was  more 
ready  and  likely  to  take  hold  of  this  artificial  retirement, 
than  of  a  course  of  existence  led  within  sight  of  the  world. 
She  finally  took  a  wiser  and  more  reasonable  way.  Her 
natural  home  was  a  palace  upon  the  Aventine  to  which  she 
returned,  consecrating  a  portion  of  it  to  pious  uses,  a  chapel 
for  common  worship  and  much  accommodation  for  the 
friends  of  similar  views  and  purposes  who  immediately  be- 
gan to  gather  about  her.  It  is  evident  that  there  were 
already  many  of  these  women  in  the  best  society  of  Rome. 
A  lively  sentiment  of  feminine  society,  of  the  multiplied 
and  endless  talks,  consultations,  speculations,  of  a  commu- 
nity of  women,  open  to  every  pleasant  curiosity  and  quick 
to  every  new  interest,  rises  immediately  before  us  in  that 
first  settlement  of  monasticism  —  or,  as  the  ecclesiastical 
historians  call  it,  the  first  convent  of  Rome,  before  our 
eyes.  It  was  not  a  convent  after  all  so  much  as  a  large  and 
hospitable  feminine  house,  possessing  the  great  luxury  of 
beautiful  rooms  and  furniture,  and  the  liberal  ways  of  a 
large  and  wealthy  family,  with  everything  that  was  most 
elegant,  most  cultured,  most  elevated,  as  well  as  most 
devout  and  pious.  The  "  Souls,"  to  use  our  own  jargon  of 
the  moment,  would  seem  indeed  to  have  been  more  truly 
represented  there  than  the  Sisters  of  our  modern  under- 
standing, though  we  may  acknowledge  that  there  are  few 
communities  of  Sisters  in  which  this  element  does  not  more 
or  less  flourish.  Christian  ladies  who  were  touched  like 
herself  with  the  desire  of  a  truer  and  purer  life,  gathered 
about  her,  as  did  the  French  ladies  about  Port  Royal,  and 


ii.]      THE  PALACE  ON  THE  AVENTINE.       21 

women  of  the  same  class  everywhere,  wherever  a  woman 
of  influential  character  leads  the  way. 

The  character  and  position  of  these  ladies  was  not  perhaps 
so  much  different  as  we  might  suppose  from  those  of  the 
court  of  Louis  XIV.  or  any  other  historical  period  in  which 
great  luxuries  and  much  dissipation  had  sickened  the  heart 
of  all  that  was  good  and  noble.  Yet  there  were  very  special 
characteristics  in  their  lot.  Some  of  them  were  the  wives 
of  pagan  officials  of  the  empire,  holding  a  sometimes  devious 
and  always  agitated  course  through  the  troubles  of  a  divided 
household  :  and  there  were  many  young  widows  perplexed 
with  projects  of  remarriage,  of  whom  some  would  be  tempted 
by  the  prospects  of  a  triumphant  re-entry  into  the  full  en- 
joyments of  life,  although  a  larger  number  were  probably 
resistant  and  alarmed,  anxious  to  retain  their  freedom,  or  to 
devote  themselves  as  Marcella  had  done  to  a  higher  life. 
Women  of  fashion  not  unwilling  to  add  a  devotion  &  la  mode 
to  their  other  distractions,  women  of  intellectual  aspirations, 
lovers  of  the  higher  education,  seekers  after  a  society  alto- 
gether brilliant  and  new,  without  any  special  emotions  of 
religious  feeling,  no  doubt  filled  up  the  ranks.  "  A  society," 
says  Thierry,  in  his  Life  of  Jerome,  "  of  rich  and  influential 
women,  belonging  for  the  great  part  to  patrician  families, 
thus  organised  itself,  and  the  oratory  on  the  Aventine 
became  a  seat  of  lay  influence  and  power  which  the  clergy 
themselves  were  soon  compelled  to  reckon  with.'7 

The  heads  of  the  community  bore  the  noblest  names  in 
Rome,  which  however  at  that  period  of  universal  deterioration 
was  not  always  a  guarantee  of  noble  birth,  since  the  great- 
est names  were  sometimes  assumed  with  the  slenderest  of 
claims  to  their  honours.  Marcella's  sister,  Asella,  older  than 
the  rest,  and  a  sort  of  mother  among  them,  had  for  a  long 
time  before  "  lived  the  life  "  in  obscurity  and  humbleness, 
and  several  others  not  remarkable  in  the  record,  were  promi- 
nent associates.  The  actual  members  of  the  community, 


22  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

however,  are  not  so  much,  remarked  or  dwelt  upon  as  the 
visitors  who  came  and  went,  not  all  of  them  of  consistent 
religious  character,  ladies  of  the  great  world.  One  of  these, 
Fabiola,  affords  an  amusing  episode  in  the  graver  tale,  the 
contrast  of  a  butterfly  of  society,  a  grande  dame  of  fascinating 
manners,  airs,  and  graces,  unfortunate  in  her  husbands,  of 
whom  she  had  two,  one  of  them  divorced  —  and  not  quite 
unwilling  to  divorce  the  second  and  try  her  luck  again. 
Another,  one  of  the  most  important  of  all  in  family  and 
pretensions,  and  by  far  the  most  important  in  history  of 
these  constant  visitors,  was  Paula,  a  descendant  (collateral, 
the  link  being  of  the  lightest  and  easiest  kind,  as  was  char- 
acteristic of  the  time)  of  the  great  ^Emilius  Paulus,  the 
daughter  of  a  distinguished  Greek  who  claimed  to  be  de- 
scended from  Agamemnon,  and  widow  of  another  who 
claimed  ^Eneas  as  his  ancestor.  These  large  claims  apart, 
she  was  certainly  a  great  lady  in  every  sense  of  the  word, 
delicate,  luxurious,  following  all  the  fashions  of  the  time. 
She  too  was  a  widow,  with  a  family  of  young  daughters,  in 
that  enviable  state  of  freedom  which  the  Roman  ladies  give 
every  sign  of  having  used  and  enjoyed  to  the  utmost,  the 
only  condition  in  which  they  were  quite  at  liberty  to  regu- 
late their  own  fate.  Paula  is  the  most  interesting  of  the 
community,  as  she  is  the  one  of  whom  we  know  the  most. 
No  fine  lady  more  exquisite,  more  fastidious,  more  splendid 
than  she.  Not  even  her  Christianity  had  beguiled  her  from 
the  superlative  finery  of  her  Roman,  habits.  She  was  one 
of  the  fine  ladies  who  could  not  walk  abroad  without  the 
support  of  her  servants,  nor  scarcely  cross  the  marble  floor 
from  one  silken  couch  to  another  without  tottering,  as  well 
she  might,  under  the  weight  of  the  heavy  tissues  interwoven 
with  gold,  of  which  her  robes  were  made.  A  widow  at 
thirty-five,  she  was  still  in  full  possession  of  the  charms  of 
womanhood,  and  the  sunshine  of  life  (though  we  are  told 
that  her  grief  for  her  husband  was  profound  and  sincere) 


ii.]      tHE  PALACE  ON  THE  AVENTINE.       23 

—  with  her  young  daughters  growing  up  round  her,  more 
like  her  sisters  than  her  children,  and  sharing  every  thought. 
Blsesilla,  the  eldest,  a  widow  at  twenty,  was,  like  her 
mother,  a  Koman  exquisite,  loving  everything  that  was  beau- 
tiful and  soft  and  luxurious.  In  the  affectionate  gibes  of 
the  family  she  is  described  as  spending  entire  days  before 
her  mirror,  giving  herself  up  to  all  the  extravagances  of  dress 
and  personal  decoration,  the  tower  of  curls  upon  her  head, 
the  touch  of  rouge  on  her  cheeks.  A  second  daughter,  Pau- 
lina, was  on  the  eve  of  marriage  with  a  young  patrician,  as 
noble,  as  rich,  and,  as  was  afterwards  proved,  as  devoutly 
Christian  as  the  family  into  which  he  married.  The  third 
member  of  the  family,  Eustochium,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  of  a 
character  contrasting  strongly  with  those  of  her  beautiful 
mother  and  sister,  a  saint  from  her  birth,  was  the  favourite, 
and  almost  the  child,  of  Marcella,  instructed  by  her  from 
her  earliest  years,  and  had  already  fixed  her  choice  upon  a 
monastic  life,  and  would  seem  to  have  been  a  resident  in 
the  Aventine  palace  to  which  the  others  were  such  frequent 
visitors.  Of  all  this  delightful  and  brilliant  party  she  is  the 
one  born  recluse,  severe  in  youthful  virtue,  untouched  by 
any  of  the  fascinations  of  the  world.  The  following  very 
pretty  and  graphic  story  is  told  of  her,  in  which  we  have 
a  curious  glimpse  into  the  strangely  mixed  society  of  the 
time. 

The  family  of  Paula  though  Christian,  and  full  of  relig- 
ious fervour,  or  at  least  imbued  with  the  new  spirit  of  revolt 
against  the  corruption  of  the  time,  was  closely  connected 
with  the  still  existing  pagan  society  of  Rome.  Her  sister- 
in-law,  sister  of  her  husband  and  aunt  of  her  children,  was 
a  certain  lady  named  Prsetextata,  the  wife  of  Hymettius,  a 
high  official  under  the  Emperor  Julian  the  Apostate,  both 
of  them  belonging,  with  something  of  the  fictitious  enthu- 
siasm of  their  master,  to  the  faith  of  the  old  gods.  No 
doubt  one  of  the  severest  critics  of  that  society  on  the 


24  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Aventine,  Prsetextata  saw  with  impatience  and  wrath,  what 
no  doubt  she  considered  the  artificial  gravity,  inspired  by 
her  surroundings,  of  the  young  niece  who  had  already  an- 
nounced her  intention  never  to  marry,  and  to  withdraw 
altogether  from  the  world.  Such  resolutions  on  the  part  of 
girls  who  know  nothing  of  the  world  they  abandon  have 
exasperated  the  most  devout  of  parents,  and  it  was  not 
wonderful  if  this  pagan  lady  thought  it  preposterous.  The 
little  plot  which  she  formed  against  the  serious  girl  was, 
however,  of  the  most  good-natured  and  innocent  kind. 
Finding  that  words  had  110  effect  upon  her,  the  elder  lady 
invited  Eustochium  to  her  house  on  a  visit.  The  young 
vestal  came  all  unsuspicious  in  her  little  brown  gown,  the 
costume  of  humility,  but  had  scarcely  entered  her  aunt's 
house  when  she  was  seized  by  the  caressing  and  nattering 
hands  of  the  attendants,  interested  in  the  plot  as  the  favour- 
ite maids  of  such  an  establishment  would  be,  who  unloosed 
her  long  hair  and  twisted  it  into  curls  and  plaits,  took  away 
her  humble  dress,  clothed  her  in  silk  and  cloth  of  gold, 
covered  her  with  ornaments  and  led  her  before  the  mirror 
which  reflected  all  these  charms,  to  dazzle  her  eyes  with  the 
apparition  of  herself,  so  different  from  the  schoolroom  figure 
with  which  she  was  acquainted.  The  little  plot  was  clever 
as  well  as  innocent,  and  might,  no  doubt,  have  made  a  heart 
of  sixteen  beat  high.  But  Eustochium  with  her  Greek 
name,  and  her  virgin  heart,  was  the  grave  girl  we  all  know, 
the  one  here  and  there  among  the  garden  of  girls,  born  to 
a  natural  seriousness  which  is  beyond  such  temptations. 
She  let  them  turn  her  round  and  round,  received  sweetly 
in  her  gentle  calm  the  applauses  of  the  collected  household, 
looked  at  her  image  in  the  mirror  as  at  a  picture  —  and 
went  home  again  in  her  little  brown  gown  with  her  story 
to  tell,  which,  no  doubt,  was  an  endless  amusement  and 
triumph  to  the  ladies  on  the  Aventine,  repeated  to  every 
new-comer  with  many  a  laugh  at  the  foolishness  of  the 


ii.]      THE  PALACE  ON  THE  AVENTINE.       25 

clever  aunt  who  had  hoped  by  such  means  to  seduce  Eu- 
stochium  —  Eustochium,  the  most  serious  of  them  all ! 

Such  was  the  first  religious  community  in  Koine.  It  was 
the  natural  home  of  Marcella  to  which  her  friends  gathered, 
without  in  most  cases  deserting  their  own  palaces,  or  for- 
saking their  own  place  in  the  world  —  a  centre  and  home 
of  the  heart,  where  they  met  constantly,  the  residents  ever 
ready  to  receive,  not  only  their  closer  associates,  but  all  the 
society  of  Koman  ladies,  who  might  be  attracted  by  the 
higher  aspirations  of  intellect  and  piety.  Not  a  stone  exists 
of  that  noble  mansion  now,  but  it  is  supposed  to  have  stood 
close  to  the  existing  church  of  Sta:  Sabina,  an  unrivalled 
mount  of  vision.  From  that  mount  now  covered  with  so 
many  ruins  the  ladies  looked  out  upon  the  yet  unbroken 
splendour  of  the  city,  Tiber  far  below  sweeping  round  under 
the  walls.  Palatinus,  with  the  "  white  roofs  "  of  that  home 
to  which  Horatius  looked  before  he  plunged  into  the  yellow 
river,  still  stood  intact  at  their  right  hand :  and,  older  far, 
and  longer  surviving,  the  wealth  of  nature,  the  glory  of  the 
Eoman  sky  and  air,  the  white-blossomed  daphne  and  the 
starry  myrtle,  and  those  roses  which  are  as  ancient  inhabi- 
tants of  the  world  as  any  we  know  flinging  their  glories 
about  the  marble  balustrades  and  making  the  terraces  sweet. 
There  would  they  walk  and  talk,  the  recluses  at  ease  and 
simple  in  their  brown  gowns,  the  great  ladies  uneasy  under 
the  weight  of  their  toilettes,  but  all  eager  to  hear,  to  tell, 
to  read  the  last  letter  from  the  East,  from  the  desert  or  the 
cloister,  to  exchange  their  experiences  and  plan  their  chari- 
ties. There  is  nothing  ascetic  in  the  picture,  which  is  a  very 
different  one  from  that  of  those  austere  solitudes  of  the  des- 
ert, which  had  suggested  and  inspired  it  —  the  lady  Paula 
tottering  in,  with  a  servant  on  either  side  to  conduct  her  to 
the  nearest  couch,  and  young  Blaesilla  making  a  brilliant 
irruption  in  all  her  bravery,  with  her  jewels  sparkling  and 
her  transparent  veil  floating,  and  her  golden  heels  tapping 


26  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

upon  the  marble  floor.  This  is  not  how  we  understand  the 
atmosphere  of  a  convent ;  yet,  if  fact  were  taken  into  due 
consideration,  the  greatest  convents  have  been  very  like  it, 
in  all  ages  —  the  finest  ladies  having  always  loved  that  in- 
tercourse and  contrast,  half  envious  of  the  peace  of  their 
cloistered  sisters,  half  pleased  to  dazzle  them  with  a  splen- 
dour which  never  could  be  theirs. 

"  No  fixed  rule,"  says  Thierry,  in  his  Life  of  St.  Jerome,  "  existed 
in  this  assembly,  where  there  was  so  much  individuality,  and  where 
monastic  life  was  not  even  attempted.  They  read  the  Holy  Scriptures 
together,  sang  psalms,  organised  good  works,  discussed  the  condition 
of  the  Church,  the  progress  of  spiritual  life  in  Italy  and  in  the  prov- 
inces, and  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  the  brothers  and  sisters  out- 
side of  a  more  strictly  monastic  character.  Those  of  the  associates  who 
carried  on  the  ordinary  life  of  the  world  came  from  time  to  time  to 
refresh  their  spirits  in  these  holy  meetings,  then  returned  to  their  fam- 
ilies. Those  who  were  free  gave  themselves  up  to  devotional  exercises, 
according  to  their  taste  and  inclination,  and  Marcella  retired  into  her 
desert.  In  a  short  time  these  exercises  were  varied  by  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge.  All  Roman  ladies  of  rank  knew  a  little  Greek,  if  only  to 
be  able  to  say  to  their  favourites,  according  to  the  mot  of  Juvenal,  re- 
peated by  a  father  of  the  Church,  Zon?  /ecu  ^vxfy  mv  ^G  and  mv  soui : 
the  Christian  ladies  studied  it  better  and  with  a  higher  motive.  Several 
later  versions  of  the  Old  and  New  Testahient  were  in  general  circu- 
lation in  Italy,  differing  considerably  from  each  other,  and  this  very 
difference  interested  anxious  minds  in  referring  to  the  original  Greek 
for  the  Gospels,  and  for  the  Hebrew  books  to  the  Greek  of  the  Septua- 
gint,  the  favourite  guide  of  Western  translators.  The  Christian  ladies 
accordingly  set  themselves  to  perfect  their  knowledge  of  Greek,  and 
many,  among  whom  were  Marcella  and  Paula,  added  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, in  order  that  they  might  sing  the  psalms  in  the  very  words  of 
the  prophet-king.  Marcella  even  became,  by  intelligent  comparison 
of  the  texts,  so  strong  in  exegetical  knowledge  that  she  was  often  con- 
sulted by  the  priests  themselves." 

It  was  about  the  year  380  that  this  establishment  was 
formed.  "  The  desert  of  Marcella  "  above  referred  to  was, 
as  the  reader  will  remember,  a  great  garden  in  a  suburb  of 
Rome,  which  she  had  pleased  herself  by  allowing  to  run 
wild,  and  where  occasionally  this  great  R,oman  lady  played 
at  a  hermit's  life  in  solitude  and  abstinence.  Paula's  desert, 
perhaps  not  so  easy  a  one,  was  in  her  own  house,  where, 
besides  the  three  daughters  already  mentioned,  she  had  a 


II.] 


THE   PALACE   ON   THE   AVENTINE. 


27 


younger  girl  Rufina,  not  yet  of  an  age  to  show  any  marked 
tendencies,  and  a  small  boy  Toxotius,  her  only  son,  who  was 
jealously  looked  after  by  his  pagan  relatives,  to  keep  him 
from  being  swept  away  by  this  tide  of  Christianity. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  circle  on  the  Aventine, 
when  a  great  event  happened  in  Rome.  Following  many 
struggles  and  disasters  in  the  East,  chiefly  the  continually 
recurring  misfortune  of  a  breach  of  unity,  a  diocese  here 


ON   THE   PALATINE. 

and  there  exhibiting  its  freedom  by  choosing  two  bishops 
representing  different  parties  at  the  same  time,  and  thus 
calling  for  the  exercise  of  some  central  authority  —  Pope 
Damasus  had  called  a  council  in  Eome.  He  was  so  well 
qualified  to  be  a  judge  in  such  cases  that  he  had  himself  won 
his  see  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  after  a  stoutly  contested 
fight  in  which  much  blood  was  shed,  and  the  church  of  S. 
Lorenzo,  the  scene  of  the  struggle,  was  besieged  and  taken 
like  a  castle.  If  he  had  hoped  by  this  means  to  establish 


28      THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.    [CH.  n. 

the  universal  authority  of  his  see,  a  pretension  as  yet  un- 
developed, it  was  immediately  forestalled  by  the  Bishop 
of  Constantinople,  who  at  once  called  together  a  rival  coun- 
cil in  that  place.  The  Council  of  Rome,  however,  is  of  so 
much  more  importance  to  us  that  it  called  into  full  light 
in  the  Western  world  the  great  and  remarkable  figure  of 
Jerome :  and  still  more  to  our  record  of  the  Roman  ladies 
of  the  Aventine,  since  it  suddenly  introduced  to  them  the 
man  whose  name  is  for  ever  connected  with  theirs,  who  is 
supposed  erroneously,  as  the  reader  will  see,  to  have  been 
the  founder  of  their  community,  but  who  henceforward 
became  its  most  trusted  leader  and  guide  in  the  spiritual 
life. 


THE  WALLS   BY   ST.   JOHN   LATERAN. 


CHAPTER   III. 


MELANIA. 

IT  may  be  well,  however,  before  continuing  this  narrative 
to  tell  the  story  of  another  Roman  lady,  not  of  their  band, 
nor  in  any  harmony  with  them,  which  had  already  echoed 
through  the  Christian  world,  a  wild  romance  of  enthusiasm 
and  adventure  in  which  the  breach  of  all  the  decorums  of 
life  was  no  less  remarkable  than  the  abandonment  of  its 
duties.  Some  ten  years  before  the  formation  of  Marcella's 
religious  household  (the  dates  are  of  the  last  uncertainty)  a 
young  lady  of  Eome,  of  Spanish  origin,  rich  and  noble  and 
of  the  highest  existing  rank,  found  herself  suddenly  left  in 
the  beginning  of  a  splendid  and  happy  life,  in  desolation 
and  bereavement.  Her  husband,  whose  name  is  unrecorded, 
died  early  leaving  her  with  three  little  children,  and  shortly 

29 


30  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

after,  while  yet  unrecovered  from  this  crushing  blow,  an- 
other came  upon  her  in  the  death  of  her  two  eldest  children, 
one  following  the  other.  The  young  woman,  only  twenty- 
three,  thus  terribly  stricken,  seems  to  have  been  roused  into 
a  fever  of  excitement  and  passion  by  a  series  of  disasters 
enough  to  crush  any  spirit.  It  is  recorded  of  her  that  she 
neither  wept  nor  tore  her  hair,  but  advancing  towards  the 
crucifix  with  her  arms  extended,  her  head  high,  her  eyes 
tearless,  and  something  like  a  smile  upon  her  lips,  thanked 
God  who  had  now  delivered  her  from  all  ties  and  left  her 
free  to  serve  Himself.  Whether  she  had  previously  enter- 
tained this  desire,  or  whether  it  was  only  the  despair  of  the 
distracted  mother  which  expressed  itself  in  such  words,  we 
are.  not  told.  In  the  haste  and  restlessness  of  her  anguish 
she  arranged  everything  for  a  great  funeral,  and  placing  the 
three  corpses  on  one  bier  followed  them  to  Eome  to  the 
family  mausoleum  alone,  holding  her  infant  son,  the  only 
thing  left  to  her,  in  her  arms.  The  populace  of  Rome,  eager 
for  any  public  show,  had  crowded  upon  the  course  of  many 
a  triumph,  and  watched  many  a  high-placed  Caesar  return 
in  victory  to  the  applauding  city,  but  never  had  seen  such  a 
triumphal  procession  as  this,  Death  the  Conqueror  leading 
his  captives.  We  are  not  told  whether  it  was  attended  by 
the  overflowing  charities,  extravagant  doles  and  offerings  to 
the  poor  with  which  other  mourners  attempted  to  assuage 
their  grief,  or  whether  Melania's  splendour  and  solitude  of 
mourning  was  unsof tened  by  any  ministrations  of  charity ; 
but  the  latter  is  more  in  accordance  with  the  extraordinary 
fury  and  passion  of  grief,  as  of  a  woman  injured  and  out- 
raged by  heaven  to  which  she  thus  called  the  attention  of 
the  spheres. 

The  impression  made  by  that  funeral  splendour  and  by 
the  sight  of  the  young  woman  following  tearless  and  de- 
spairing with  her  one  remaining  infant  in  her  arms,  had 
not  faded  from  the  minds  of  the  spectators  when  it  was 


in.]  MELANIA.  31 

rumoured  through  Koine  that  Melania  had  abandoned  her 
one  remaining  tie  to  life  and  gone  forth  into  the  outside 
world  no  one  knew  where,  leaving  her  child  so  entirely  with- 
out any  arrangement  for  its  welfare  that  the  official  charged 
with  the  care  of  orphans  had  to  select  a  guardian  for  this 
son  of  senators  and  consuls  as  if  he  had  been  a  nameless 
foundling.  What  bitterness  of  soul  lay  underneath  such 
an  incomprehensible  desertion,  who  could  say  ?  It  might 
be  a  sense  of  doom  such  as  overwhelms  some  sensitive  minds, 
as  if  everything  belonging  to  them  were  fated  and  nothing 
left  them  but  the  tragic  expedient  of  Hagar  in  the  desert, 
"  Let  me  not  see  the  child  die."  Perhaps  the  courage  of 
the  heartbroken  young  woman  sank  before  the  struggle  with 
pagan  relations,  who  would  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  bring 
up  this  last  scion  of  the  family  in  the  faith  or  no-faith  of 
his  ancestors ;  perhaps  she  was  in  reality  devoid  of  those 
maternal  instincts  which  make  the  child  set  upon  the  knee 
the  best  comforter  of  the  woman  to  whom  they  have 
brought  home  her  warrior  dead.  This  was  the  explanation 
given  by  the  world  which  tore  the  unhappy  Melania  to 
pieces  and  held  her  up  to  universal  indignation.  Not  even 
the  Christians  already  touched  with  the  enthusiasm  and 
passion  of  the  pilgrim  and  ascetic  could  justify  the  sudden 
and  mysterious  disappearance  of  a  woman  who  still  had  so 
strong  a  natural  bond  to  keep  her  in  her  home.  But  what- 
ever the  character  of  Melania  might  be,  whether  destitute 
of  tenderness,  or  only  distracted  by  grief  and  bereavement, 
and  hastening  to  take  her  fatal  shadow  away  from  the 
cradle  of  her  child,  she  was  at  least  invulnerable  to  any 
argument  or  persuasion.  "  God  will  take  care  of  him  better 
than  I  can,"  she  said  as  she  left  the  infant  to  his  fate.  It 
was  probably  a  better  one  than  had  he  been  the  charge  of 
this  apparently  friendless  young  woman,  with  her  pagan 
relations,  her  uncompromising  enthusiasm  and  self-will,  and 
with  all  the  risks  surrounding  her  feet  which  made  the 


32  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

path  of  a  young  widow  in  Eome  so  full  of  danger ;  but  it  is 
fortunate  for  the  world  that  few  mothers  are  capable  of 
counting  those  risks  or  of  turning  their  backs  upon  a  duty 
which  is  usually  their  best  consolation. 

There  is,  however,  an  interest  in  the  character  and  pro- 
ceedings of  such  an  exceptional  woman  which  has  always 
excited  the  world,  and  which  the  thoughtful  spectator  will 
scarcely  dismiss  with  the  common  imputation  of  simple 
heartlessness  and  want  of  feeling.  Melania  was  a  proud 
patrician  notwithstanding  that  she  flung  from  her  every 
trace  of  earthly  rank  or  wealth,  and  a  high-spirited,  high- 
tempered  individual  notwithstanding  her  subsequent  plunge 
into  the  most  self-abasing  ministrations  of  charity.  And 
these  features  of  character  were  not  altered  by  her  sudden 
renunciation  of  all  things.  She  went  forth  a  masterful 
personage  determined,  though  no  doubt  unconsciously,  to 
sway  all  circumstances  to  her  will,  though  in  the  utmost 
self-denial  and  with  all  the  appearances  and  surroundings 
of  humility.  This  is  a  paradox  which  meets  us  on  every 
side,  in  the  records  of  such  world-abandonment  as  are 
familiar  in  every  history  of  the  beginnings  of  the  monastic 
system,  in  which  continually  both  men  and  women  give 
up  all  things  while  giving  up  nothing,  and  carry  their  indi- 
vidual will  and  way  through  circumstances  which  seem  to 
preclude  the  exercise  of  either. 

The  disappearance  of  Melania  made  a  great  sensation  in 
Rome,  and  no  doubt  discouraged  Christian  zeal  and  woke 
doubts  in  many  minds  even  while  proving  to  others  the 
height  of  sacrifice  which  could  be  made  for  the  faith.  On 
the  other  hand  the  adversary  had  boundless  occasion  to  blas- 
pheme and  denounce  the  doctrines  which,  as  he  had  some 
warrant  for  saying,  thus  struck  at  the  very  basis  of  society 
and  weakened  every  bond  of  nature.  What  more  dreadful 
influence  could  be  than  one  which  made  a  woman  forsake 
her  child,  the  infant  whom  she  had  carried  in  her  arms  to 


in.]  MELANIA.  33 

the  great  funeral,  in  the  sight  of  all  Rome,  the  son  of  her  sor- 
row? Nobody  except  a  hot-headed  enthusiast  could  take 
her  part  even  among  her  fellow-Christians,  nor  does  it 
appear  that  she  sought  any  support  or  made  any  apology 
for  herself.  Jerome,  then  a  young  student  and  scholar  from 
the  East,  was  in  Rome,  in  obscurity,  still  a  catechumen  pre- 
paring for  his  baptism,  at  the  time  of  Melania's  flight ;  and 
though  there  is  no  proof  that  he  was  even  known  to  her,  and 
no  probability  that  so  unknown  a  person  could  have  anything 
to  do  with  her  resolution,  or  could  have  influenced  her  mind, 
it  was  suggested  in  later  times  when  he  was  well  known, 
that  probably  he  had  much  to  do  —  who  can  tell  if  not  the 
most  powerful  and  guilty  of  motives  ?  —  in  determining  her 
flight.  Such  a  vulgar  explanation  is  always  adapted  to  the 
humour  of  the  crowd,  and  gives  an  easy  solution  of  the  prob- 
lems which  are  otherwise  so  difficult  to  solve.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  these  two  personages,  not  unlike  each  other  in  force 
and  spirit,  had  much  to  do  with  each  other,  though  mostly 
in  a  hostile  sense,  in  the  after  part  of  their  life. 

We  find  Melania  again  in  Egypt,  to  which  presumably 
she  at  once  directed  her  flight  as  the  headquarters  of  austere 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  on  leaving  Rome  —  alone  so  far 
as  appears.  This  was  in  the  year  372  (nothing  can  be  more 
delightful  than  to  encounter  from  time  to  time  a  date,  like 
an  angel,  in  the  vague  wilderness  of  letters  and  narratives), 
when  Athanasius  the  great  Bishop  was  near  his  end.  The 
young  fugitive,  whose  arrival  in  Alexandria  would  not  be 
attended  by  such  mystery  as  shrouded  her  departure  from 
Kome,  was  received  kindly  by  the  dying  saint,  to  whom  she 
had  probably  been  known  in  her  better  days,  and  who  in 
his  enthusiasm  for  the  life  of  monastic  privation  and  sacri- 
fice probably  considered  her  flight  and  her  resolution  alike 
inspired  by  heaven.  He  gave  her,  let  us  hope,  his  blessing, 
and  much  good  counsel  —  in  addition  to  the  sacred  sheep- 
skin which  had  formed  the  sole  garment  of  the  holy  Maca- 


34  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME,         [CHAP. 

rius  in  his  cell  in  the  desert,  which  she  carried  away  with 
her  as  her  most  valued  possession.  The  great  Roman  lady 
then  pursued  her  way  into  the  wilderness,  which  was  indeed 
a  wilderness  rather  in  name  than  in  fact,  being  peopled  on 
every  side  by  communities  both  of  men  and  women,  while 
in  every  rocky  fissure  -and  cavern  were  hermits  jealously 
shut  each  in  his  hole,  the  more  inaccessible  the  better. 
Nothing  can  be  more  contradictory  than  the  terms  used. 
This  desert  of  solitaries  gave  forth  the  evening  hymn  over 
all  its  extent  as  if  the  very  sands  and  rocks  sang,  so  many 
were  the  unseen  worshippers.  And  the  traveller  went  into 
the  wilderness  alone  so  to  speak,  in  the  utmost  self-abnega- 
tion and  humility,  yet  attended  by  an  endless  retinue  of 
servants  whose  attendance  was  indispensable,  if  only  to 
convey  and  protect  the  store  of  provisions  and  presents 
which  she  carried  with  her. 

The  conception  of  a  lonely  figure  on  the  edge  of  a  track- 
less sandy  waste  facing  all  perils,  and  encountering  perhaps 
after  toilsome  days  of  solitude  a  still  more  lonely  anchorite 
in  his  cell,  to  give  her  the  hospitality  of  a  handful  of  peas, 
and  a  shrine  of  prayer,  which  is  the  natural  picture  which 
rises  before  us  —  changes  greatly  when  the  details  are  exam- 
ined. Melania  evidently  travelled  with  a  great  caravanserai, 
with  camels  laden  with  grain  and  every  kind  of  provision 
that  was  necessary  to  sustain  life  in  those  regions.  The 
times  were  more  troublous  even  than  usual.  The  death  of 
Athanasius  was  the  signal  for  one  of  those  outbursts  of  per- 
secution which  rent  the  Christian  world  in  its  very  earliest 
ages,  and  which  alas !  the  Church  herself  has  never  been 
slow  to  learn  the  use  of.  The  underground  or  overground 
population  of  the  Egyptian  desert  was  orthodox ;  the  powers 
that  were,  were  Arian ;  and  hermits  and  coenobites  alike  were 
hunted  out  of  their  refuges  and  dragged  before  tribunals, 
where  their  case  was  decided  before  it  was  heard  and  every 
ferocity  used  against  them.  In  a  country  so  rent  by  the 


in.]  MELANIA.  35 

most  violent  of  agitations  Melania  passed  like  an  angel  of 
charity.  She  became  the  providence  of  the  hunted  and  suf- 
fering monks.  She  is  said  for  a  short  period  to  have  pro- 
vided for  five  thousand  in  Mtria,  which  proves  that  however 
secret  her  disappearance  from  Eome  had  been,  her  address 
as  we  should  say  must  have  been  well  known  to  her  bankers, 
or  their  equivalent.  Thus  it  is  evident  that  a  robe  of  sack- 
cloth need  not  necessarily  imply  poverty,  much  less  humil- 
ity, and  that  a  woman  may  ride  about  on  the  most  sorry 
horse  (chosen  it  would  seem  because  it  was  a  more  abject 
thing  than  the  well-conditioned  ass  of  the  East)  and  yet 
demean  herself  like  a  princess. 

There  is  one  story  told  of  this  primitive  Lady  Bountiful 
by  Palladius  which  if  it  did  not  recall  the  action  of  St.  Paul 
in  somewhat  similar  circumstances  would  be  highly  pictu- 
resque. The  proconsul  in  Palestine,  not  at  all  aware  who 
was  the  pestilent  woman  who  persisted  in  supplying  and 
defending  the  population  of  the  religious  which  it  was  his 
mission  to  get  rid  of  —  even  going  so  far  as  to  visit  and 
nourish  them  in  his  prisons  —  had  her  arrested  to  answer 
for  her  interference.  There  is  nothing  more  likely  than 
that  Melania  remembered  the  method  adopted  by  St.  Paul 
to  bring  his  judges  to  his  feet.  She  s$nt  the  consul  a  mes- 
sage in  which  a  certain  compassionate  scorn  mingles  with 
pride.  "You  esteem  me  by  my  present  dress,"  she  said, 
"which  it  is  quite  in  my  power  to  change  when  I  will. 
Take  care  lest  you  bring  yourself  into  trouble  by  what  you 
do  in  your  ignorance."  This  incident  happened  at  Csesarea, 
the  great  city  on  the  Mediterranean  shore  which  Herod  had 
built,  and  where  the  prodigious  ruins  still  lie  in  sombre 
grandeur  capable  of  restoration  to  the  uses  of  life.  The 
governor  of  the  Syrian  city  trembled  in  his  gilded  chair. 
The  names  which  Melania  quoted  were  enough  to  unseat 
him  half  a  dozen  times  over,  though,  truth  to  tell,  they  are 
not  very  clearly  revealed  to  the  distant  student.  He  hast- 


36  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ened  to  set  free  the  sunburnt  pilgrim  in  her  brown  gown, 
and  leave  her  to  her  own  devices.  "  One  must  answer  a 
fool  according  to  his  folly,"  she  said  disdainfully,  as  she 
accepted  her  freedom.  This  lady's  progress  through  the 
haunted  deserts,  her  entrance  into  town  after  town,  with  the 
shield  of  rank  ready  for.use  in  any  emergency,  attended  by 
continual  supplies  from  the  stewards  of  her  estates,  and  the 
power  of  shedding  abundance  round  her  wherever  she  went, 
could  hardly  be  said  to  merit  the  rewards  of  privation  and 
austerity  even  if  her  delicate  feet  were  encased  in  rude  san- 
dals and  the  cloth  of  gold  replaced  by  a  tunic  of  rough  wool. 
Melania  had  been,  presumably  for  some  time  before  this 
incident,  accompanied  by  a  priest  named  Kufinus,  a  fellow- 
countryman,  schoolfellow  and  dear  friend  of  Jerome,  the 
future  Father  of  the  Church,  at  this  period  a  young  relig- 
ious adventurer  if  we  may  use  the  word :  —  which  indeed 
seems  the  only  description  applicable  to  the  bands  of  young, 
devout  enthusiasts,  who  roamed  about  the  world,  -not  bound 
to  any  special  duties,  supporting  themselves  one  knows  not 
how,  aiming  at  one  knows  not  what,  except  some  devotion 
of  mystical  religious  life,  or  indefinite  Christian  service  to 
the  world.  The  object  of  saving  their  souls  was  perhaps 
for  most  the  prevai]|ng  object,  and  the  greater  part  of  them 
had  at  least  passed  a  year  or  two  in  those  Eastern  deserts 
where  renunciation  of  the  world  had  been  pushed  to  its 
furthest  possibilities.  But  they  were  also  hungry  for  learn- 
ing, for  knowledge,  for  disciples,  and  full  of  that  activity  of 
youth  which  is  bound  to  go  everywhere  and  see  everything 
whether  with  possible  means  and  motives  or  not.  What- 
ever they  were,  they  were  not  so  far  as  can  be  made  out 
missionaries  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  They  were  received 
wherever  they  went,  in  devout  households  here  and  there, 
in  any  of  the  early  essays  at  monasteries  which  existed  by 
bounty  and  Christian  charity,  among  the  abounding  depend- 
ents of  great  houses,  or  by  the  bishop  or  other  ecclesiastical 


m.]  MELAtflA.  39 

functionary.  They  were  this  man's  secretary,  that  man's 
tutor  —  seldom  so  far  as  we  can  see  were  they  employed  as 
chaplains.  Eufinus  indeed  was  a  priest,  but  few  of  the 
others  were  so,  Jerome  himself  only  having  consented  to  be 
ordained  from  courtesy,  and  in  no  way  fulfilling  the  duties 
of  the  priesthood.  There  were,  however,  many  offices  no 
doubt  appropriate  to  them  in  the  household  of  a  bishop, 
who  was  often  the  distributor  of  great  charities  and  the 
administrator  of  great  possessions.  But  it  is  evident  that 
there  were  always  a  number  of  these  scholar-student  monks 
available  to  join  any  travelling  party,  to  serve  their  patron 
with  their  knowledge  of  the  desert  and  their  general  experi- 
ence of  the  ways  of  the  world.  "  To  lead  about  a  sister  " : 
—  St.  Paul  perhaps  had  already  in  his  time  some  knowledge 
of  the  usefulness  of  such  a  functionary,  and  of  the  perfectly 
legitimate  character  of  his  office.  Rufinus  joined  Melania  in 
this  way,  to  all  appearance  as  the  other  head  of  the  expedi- 
tion, on  perfectly  equal  terms,  though  it  was  her  purse 
which  supplied  everything  necessary.  Jerome  himself 
(with  a  train  of  brethren  behind  him)  travelled  in  the 
same  way  with  Paula  —  Oceanus  with  Fabiola.  Nothing 
could  be  more  completely  in  accordance  with  the  fashion 
of  the  time.  Perhaps  the  young  men  provided  for  their 
own  expenses  as  we  say,  but  the  caravan  was  the  lady's 
and  all  the  immense  and  indiscriminate  charity  which 
flowed  from  it. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  follow  the  career  of  Eufinus 
any  more  than  we  intend  to  follow  that  of  Jerome,  into  the 
violent  controversy  which  is  the  chief  link  which  connects 
their  names,  or  indeed  in  any  way  except  that  of  their  associ- 
ation with  the  women  of  our  tale.  Rufinus  was  a  Dalmatian 
from  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  learned  enough  according 
to  the  fashion  of  his  time,  though  not  such  a  scholar  as  Je- 
rome, and  apt  to  despise  those  elegances  of  literature  which 
lie  was  incapable  of  appreciating.  He  too,  no  doubt,  like 


40  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Jerome,  had  some  following  of  other  men  like  himself,  ready 
for  any  adventure,  and  glad  to  make  themselves  the  almon- 
ers of  Melania  and  form  a  portion  of  her  train.  It  is  a 
strange  conjunction  according  to  our  modern  ideas,  and  no 
doubt  there  were  vague  and  flying  slanders,  such  as  exist 
in  all  ages,  accounting  for  anything  that  is  unusual  or  myste- 
rious by  the  worse  reasons.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
such  partnerships  were  habitual  in  those  days,  permitted  by 
the  usage  of  a  time  of  which  absolute  purity  was  the  craze 
and  monomania,  if  we  may  so  speak,  as  well  as  the  ideal : 
and  also  that  the  solitude  of  those  pilgrims  was  at  all  times 
that  of  a  crowd  —  the  supposed  fugitive  flying  forth  alone 
being  in  reality,  as  has  been  explained  already,  accompanied 
on  every  stage  of  the  way  by  attendants  enough  to  fill  her 
ship  and  form  her  caravan  wherever  she  went. 

From  Csesarea,  where  Melania  discomfited  the  govern- 
ment by  her  high  rank  and  connections,  it  is  but  a  little  way 
to  Jerusalem,  where  the  steps  of  the  party  were  directed 
after  their  prolonged  journey  through  the  desert.  It  had 
already  become  the  end  of  many  pilgrimages,  the  one  place 
in  the  world  which  most  attracted  the  hearts  and  imagina- 
tions of  the  devout  throughout  all  the  world ;  and  we  can 
well  realise  the  sensation  of  the  wanderers  when  they  came 
in  sight  of  that  green  hill,  dominating  the  scene  of  so  many 
tragedies,  the  still  half-ruined  but  immortal  city  of  which 
the  very  dust  was  dear  to  the  primitive  Christians.  Who 
that  has  come  suddenly  upon  that  scene  in  quiet,  without 
offensive  guidance  or  ciceroneship,  has  not  named  to  himself 
the  Mount  of  Olives  with  such  a  thrill  of  identification  as 
would  move  him  in  scarcely  any  other  landscape  in  the 
world  ?  It  was  still  comparatively  virgin  soil  in  the  end  of 
the  fourth  century.  The  Empress  Helena  had  been  there, 
making,  as  we  all  feel  now,  but  too  easy  and  too  exact  dis- 
coveries :  but  the  country  was  unexplored  by  any  vain  search- 
ings  of  curiosity,  and  the  calm  of  solitude,  as  perfect  and 


in.]  MELANIA.  41 

far  sweeter  than  amid  the  sands  of  the  deserts,  was  still 
to  be  found  there.  The  pilgrims  went  no  further.  They 
chose  each  their  site  upon  the  soft  slope  of  that  hill  of  di- 
vine memories.  Rufinus  took  up  his  abode  in  a  rocky  cell, 
Melania  probably  in  some  house  in  the  city,  while  their 
monasteries  were  being  built.  The  great  Roman  lady  with 
her  faithful  stewards,  always  sending  those  ever  valuable 
supplies,  no  doubt  provided  for  the  expenses  of  both :  and 
soon  two  communities  arose  near  each  other  preserving  the 
fellowship  of  their  founders,  where  after  some  years  of 
travel  and  movement  Melania,  with  strength  and  courage 
restored,  took  up  her  permanent  abode. 

It  is  difficult  to  decide  what  is  meant  by  sacrifice  and 
self-abnegation  in  this  world  of  human  subterfuge  and  self- 
deception.  It  is  very  likely  that  Melania,  like  Paula  after 
her,  gave  herself  to  the  most  humble  menial  offices,  and  did 
not  scorn,  great  lady  as  she  was,  to  bow  the  haughty  head 
which  had  made  the  proconsul  of  Palestine  tremble,  to  the 
modest  necessities  of  primitive  life.  Perhaps  she  cooked 
the  spare  food,  swept  the  bare  cells  with  her  own  hands : 
undoubtedly  she  would  superintend  the  flocks  and  herds  and 
meagre  fields  which  kept  her  community  supplied.  We 
know  that  she  rode  the  sorriest  horse,  and  wore  the  rough- 
est gown.  These  things  rank  high  in  the  catalogue  of  pri- 
vations, as  privations  are  calculated  in  the  histories  of  the 
saints.  And  yet  it  is  doubtful  how  far  she  is  to  be  credited, 
if  it  were  a  merit,  with  any  self-sacrifice.  She  had  attained 
the  full  gratification  of  her  own  will  and  way,  which  is  an 
advantage  not  easily  or  often  computed.  She  had  settled 
herself  in  the  most  interesting  spot  in  the  world,  in  the 
midst  of  a  landscape  which,  notwithstanding  all  natural 
aridity  and  the  depressing  effects  of  ruin  everywhere,  is  yet 
full  of  beauty  as  well  as  interest.  Most  of  all  perhaps  she 
was  in  the  way  of  the  very  best  of  company,  receiving  pil- 
grims of  the  highest  eminence,  bishops,  scholars,  princes, 


42      THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.   [CH.  in. 

sometimes  ladies  of  rank  like  herself,  who  were  continually 
coming  and  going,  bringing  the  great  news  of  the  world  from 
every  quarter  to  the  recluses  who  thus  commanded  every- 
thing that  wealth  could  supply.  One  may  be  sure  that,  as 
Jerome  and  Paula  afterwards  spent  many  a  serene  evening 
in  Bethlehem  under  their  trees,  Melania  and  Rufinus  would 
often  sit  under  those  hoary  olives  doubly  grey  with  age, 
talking  of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  looking  across  the 
little  valley  to  the  wall,  all  the  more  picturesque  that  it  was 
broken,  and  lay  here  and  there  in  heaps  of  ruin,  of  Jerusalem, 
and  hearing,  in  the  pauses  of  their  conversation,  the  tinkling 
of  that  little  brook  which  has  seen  so  many  sacred  scenes  and 
over  which  our  Lord  and  His  favourite  disciples  crossed  to 
Gethsemane,  on  such  a  night  as  that  on  which  His  servants 
sat  and  talked  of  Him.  It  is  true  that  the  accursed  Arians, 
and  grave  news  of  the  fight  going  on  between  them  and  the 
Catholics,  or  perhaps  the  question  of  Origen's  orthodoxy,  or 
how  the  struggle  was  going  between  Paulinus  and  Meletius 
at  Antioch,  might  occupy  them  more  than  those  sacred 
memories.  But  it  is  much  to  be  doubted  whether  any 
grandeur  of  Roman  living  would  have  been  so  much  to 
Melania' s  mind  as  the  convent  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  the 
stream  of  distinguished  pilgrims,  and  the  society  of  her  ever 
devoted  companion  and  friend. 


THE   TEMPLE    OF   VESTA. 


CHURCHES   ON   THE  AVENTINE. 


CHAPTEK  IV. 


THE    SOCIETY    OF    MARCELLA. 


r  I  iHE  council  which  was  held  in  Rome  in  382  with  the 
-J-  intention  of  deciding  the  cases  of  various  contending 
bishops  in  distant  sees,  especially  in  Antioch  where  two  had 
been  elected  for  the  same  seat —  a  council  scarcely  acknowl- 
edged even  by  those  on  whose  behalf  it  was  held,  and  not  at 
all  by  those  opposed  to  them  —  was  chiefly  remarkable,  as 
we  have  said,  from  the  appearance  for  the  first  time,  as  a 
marked  and  notable  personage,  of  one  of  the  most  important, 
picturesque,  and  influential  figures  of  his  time  —  Jerome :  a 
scholar  insatiable  in  intellectual  zeal,  who  had  sought  every- 
where the  best  schools  of  the  time  and  was  learned  in  all 
their  science:  and  at  the  same  time  a  monk  and  ascetic 
fresh  from  the  austerities  of  the  desert  and  one  of  those 
struggles  with  the  flesh  and  the  imagination  which  formed 
the  epic  of  the  solitary.  It  was  not  unnatural  that  the 
regime  of  extreme  abstinence  combined  with  utter  want  of 

43 


44:  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

occupation,  and  the  concentration  of  all  thought  upon  one's 
self  and  one's  moods  and  conditions  of  mind,  should  have 
awakened  all  the  subtleties  of  the  imagination,  and  filled 
the  brooding  spirit  with  dreams  of  every  wild  and  extrav- 
agant kind ;  but  it  would  not  occur  to  us  now  to  represent 
the  stormy  passage  into  a  life  dedicated  to  religion  as  filled 
with  dancing  nymphs  and  visions  of  the  grossest  sensual 
enjoyment —  above  all  in  the  case  of  such  a  man  as  Jerome, 
whose  chief  temptations  one  would  have  felt  to  be  of  quite 
another  kind.  This  however  was  the  fashion  of  the  time, 
and  belonged  more  or  less  to  the  monkish  ideal,  which  ex- 
aggerated the  force  of  all  these  lower  fleshly  impulses  by 
way  of  enhancing  the  virtue  of  him  who  successfully  over- 
came them.  The  early  fathers  all  scourged  themselves  till 
they  were  in  danger  of  their  lives,  rolled  themselves  in  the 
snow,  lay  on  the  cold  earth,  and  lived  on  a  handful  of  dried 
grain,  perhaps  on  the  grass  and  wild  herbs  to  be  found  in 
the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  in  order  to  get  the  body  into 
subjection:  which  might  have  been  more  easily  done,  we 
should  have  supposed,  by  putting  other  more  wholesome 
subjects  in  the  place  of  these  visionary  temptations,  or 
filling  the  vacancy  of  the  hours  with  hard  work.  But  the 
dulness  of  an  English  clown  or  athlete,  in  whom  muscular 
exercise  extinguishes  all  visions,  would  not  have  been  at 
all  to  the  mind  of  a  monkish  neophyte,  to  whom  the  sharp- 
est stings  of  penitence  and  agonies  of  self-humiliation  were 
necessary,  whether  he  had  done  anything  to  call  them  forth 
or  not. 

Jerome  had  gone  through  all  these  necessary  sufferings 
without  sparing  himself  a  pang.  His  face  pale  with  fast- 
ing, and  his  body  so  worn  with  penance  and  privation  that 
it  was  almost  dead,  he  had  yet  felt  the  fire  of  earthly  pas- 
sions burning  in  his  soul  after  the  truest  orthodox  model. 
"  The  sack  with  which  I  was  covered,"  he  says,  "  deformed 
my  members ;  my  skin  and  flesh  were  like  those  of  an 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  45 

Ethiop.  But  in  that  vast  solitude,  burnt  up  by  the  blazing 
sun,  all  the  delights  of  Rome  appeared  before  my  eyes. 
Scorpions  and  wild  beasts  were  my  companions,  yet  I 
seemed  to  hear  the  choruses  of  dancing  girls." 

Finding  no  succour  anywhere,  I  flung  myself  at  the  feet  of  Jesus, 
bathing  them  with  tears,  drying  them  with  the  hair  of  my  head.  I 
passed  day  and  night  beating  my  breast,  I  banished  myself  even  from 
my  cell,  as  if  it  were  conscious  of  all  my  evil  thoughts  ;  and,  rigid  against 
myself,  wandered  further  into  the  desert,  seeking  some  deeper  cave, 
some  wilder  mountain,  some  riven  rock  which  I  could  make  the  prison 
of  this  miserable  flesh,  the  place  of  my  prayers. 

Sometimes  he  endeavoured  to  find  refuge  in  his  books, 
the  precious  parchments  which  he  carried  with  him  even 
in  those  unlikely  regions :  but  here  another  temptation 
came  in.  "  Unhappy  that  I  am,"  he  cries,  "  I  fasted  yet 
read  Cicero.  After  spending  nights  of  wakefulness  and 
tears  I  found  Plautus  in  my  hands."  To  lay  aside  dram- 
atist, orator,  and  poet,  so  well  known  and  familiar,  and 
plunge  into  the  imperfectly  known  character  of  the  Hebrew 
which  he  was  learning,  the  uncomprehended  mysteries  and 
rude  style  of  the  prophets,  was  almost  as  terrible  as  to  fling 
himself  fasting  on  the  cold  earth  and  hear  the  bones  rattle 
in  the  skin  which  barely  held  them  together.  Yet  some- 
times there  were  moments  of  deliverance :  sometimes,  when 
all  the  tears  were  shed,  gazing  up  with  dry  exhausted  eyes 
to  the  sky  blazing  with  stars,  "  I  felt  myself  transported  to 
the  midst  of  the  angels,  and  full  of  confidence  and  joy, 
lifted  up  my  voice  and  sang,  '  Because  of  the  savour  of  thy 
ointments  we  will  run  after  thee.'  "  Thus  both  were  recon- 
ciled, his  imagination  freed  from  temptation,  and  the  poetry 
of  the  crabbed  books,  which  were  so  different  from  Cicero, 
made  suddenly  clear  to  his  troubled  eyes. 

This  was  however  but  a  small  part  of  the  training  of 
Jerome.  From  his  desert,  as  his  spirit  calmed,  he  carried 
on  a  great  correspondence,  and  many  of  his  letters  became 
at  once  a  portion  of  the  literature  of  his  time.  One  in 


46  TUP:  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

particular,  an  eloquent  and  oratorical  appeal  to  one  of 
his  friends,  the  Epistle  to  Heliodorus,  with  its  elaborate 
description  of  the  evils  of  the  world  and  impassioned  call 
to  the  peace  of  the  desert,  went  through  the  religious 
circles  of  the  time  with  that  wonderful  speed  and  facility 
of  circulation  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  understand,  and  was 
read  in  Marcella's  palace  on  the  Aventine  and  learnt  by 
heart  by  some  fervent  listeners,  so  precious  were  its  elabo- 
rate sentences  held  to  be.  This  letter  boldly  proclaimed 
as  the  highest  principle  of  life  the  extraordinary  step  which 
Melania,  as  well  as  so  many  other  self-devoted  persons,  had 
taken  —  and  called  every  Christian  to  the  desert,  whatever 
duties  or  enjoyments  might  stand  in  the  way.  Perhaps 
such  exhortations  are  less  dangerous  than  they  seem  to  be, 
for  the  noble  ladies  who  read  and  admired  and  learned  by 
heart  these  moving  appeals  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
otherwise  affected  by  them.  Like  the  song  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner,  they  have  to  be  addressed  to  the  predestined,  who 
alone  have  ears  to  hear.  Heliodorus,  upon  whom  all  that 
eloquence  was  poured  at  first  hand,  turned  a  deaf  ear,  and 
lived  and  died  in  peace  among  his  own  people,  among  the 
lagoons  where  Venice  as  yet  was  not,  notwithstanding  all 
his  friend  could  say. 

"  What  make  you  in  your  father's  house,  oh  sluggish 
soldier  ? "  cried  that  eager  voice ;  "  where  are  your  ram- 
parts and  trenches,  under  what  tent  of  skins  have  you 
passed  the  bitter  winter  ?  The  trumpet  of  heaven  sounds, 
and  the  great  Leader  comes  upon  the  clouds  to  overcome 
the  world.  Let  the  little  ones  hang  upon  other  necks ; 
let  your  mother  rend  her  hair  and  her  garments ;  let  your 
father  stretch  himself  on  the  threshold  to  prevent  you  from 
passing :  but  arise,  come  thou  !  Are  you  not  pledged  to  the 
sacrifice  even  of  father  and  mother  ?  If  you  believe  in 
Christ,  fight  with  me  for  His  name  and  let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead."  There  were  many  who  would  dwell  upon 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  47 

these  entreaties  as  upon  a  noble  song  rousing  the  heart  and 
charming  the  ear,  but  the  balance  of  human  nature  is  but 
rarely  disturbed  by  any  such  appeal.  Even  in  that  early 
age  we  may  in  the  greater  number  of  cases  permit  it  to 
move  all  hearers  without  any  great  fears  for  the  issue. 

Jerome,  however,  did  not  himself  remain  very  long  in 
his  desert ;  he  was  invaded  in  his  very  cell  by  the  echoes 
of  polemical  warfare  drifting  in  from  the  world  he  had  left : 
and  was  called  upon  to  pronounce  himself  for  one  side  or 
the  other,  while  yet,  according  to  his  own  account,  unaware 
what  it  was  all  about.  He  left  his  retirement  unwillingly 
after  some  three  years,  quoting  Virgil  as  to  the  barbarity  of 
the  race  which  refused  him  the  hospitality  of  a  little  sand, 
and  plunged  into  the  fight  at  Antioch  between  •  contending 
bishops  and  parties,  the  heresy  of  Apollinaris,  and  all  the 
rage  of  religious  polemics.  It  was  probably  his  intimate 
acquaintance  with  all  the  questions  so  strongly  contested  in 
the  East,  and  his  power  of  giving  information  on  points 
which  the  Western  Council  could  only  know  at  second 
hand,  which  led  him  to  Rome  on  the  eve  of  the  Council 
already  referred  to,  called  by  Pope  Damasus,  in  382.  The 
primary  object  of  this  Council  was  to  settle  matters  of 
ecclesiastical  polity,  and  especially  the  actual  question  as 
to  which  of  the  competitors  was  lawful  bishop  of  Antioch, 
besides  other  questions  concerning  other  important  sees. 
It  was  no  small  assumption  on  the  part  of  the  bishops  of 
the  West,  an  assumption  supported  in  those  days  by  no 
dogma  as  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Home,  to 
interfere  in  the  affairs  of  the  East  to  this  extent.  And  it 
was  at  once  crushed  by  the  action  of  the  Church  in  the 
East,  which  immediately  held  a  council  of  its  own  at 
Constantinople,  and  authoritatively  decided  every  practical 
question.  Jerome  was  the  friend  of  all  those  bishops  whose 
causes  would  have  been  pleaded  at  Rome,  had  not  their 
own  section  of  the  Church  thus  made  short  work  with 


48  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

them:  and  this  no  doubt  commended  him  to  the  special 
attention  of  Damasus,  even  after  these  practical  questions 
were  set  aside,  and  the  heresy  of  Apollinaris,  which  had 
been  intended  to  be  treated  in  the  second  place,  was  turned 
into  the  only  subject  before  the  house.  Jerome  was  deeply 
learned  on  the  subject  of  Apollinaris  too.  It  was  on  account 
of  this  new  heresy  that  his  place  in  Egypt  had  become 
untenable.  His  knowledge  could  not  but  be  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  the  Western  bishops,  who  were  not  as  a  rule 
scholars,  nor  given  to  the  subtle  reasoning  of  the  East. 
He  was  very  welcome  therefore  in  Rome,  especially  after 
the  illness  of  the  great  Ambrose  had  denuded  that  Council, 
shorn  of  so  much  of  its  prestige,  of  almost  the  only  impos- 
ing name  left  to  it.  This  was  the  opportunity  of  such  a 
man  as  Jerome,  in  himself,  as  we  have  said,  still  not  much 
different  from  the  many  young  religious  adventurers  who 
scoured  the  world.  He  was  already,  however,  a  distin- 
guished man  of  letters :  he  was  known  to  Damasus,  who 
had  baptized  him :  he  had  learning  enough  to  supplement 
the  deficiencies  of  an  entire  Council,  and  for  once  these 
abilities  were  fully  appreciated  and  found  their  right  place. 
He  had  scarcely  arrived  in  Rome  when  he  was  named  Sec- 
retary of  the  Council  —  a  temporary  office  which  was  after- 
wards prolonged  and  extended  to  that  of  Secretary  to  the 
Pope  himself:  thus  the  stranger  became  at  once  a  func- 
tionary of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
See  of  Rome  and  in  its  development  as  a  supreme  power 
and  authority  in  the  Church. 

There  is  something  strangely  familiar  and  quaint  in  the 
appearance,  so  perfectly  known  to  ourselves,  of  the  gather- 
ing of  a  religious  congress,  convocation,  or  general  assembly, 
when  every  considerable  house  and  hospitable  family  is 
moved  to  receive  some  distinguished  clerical  visitor  —  which 
thus  took  place  in  Rome  in  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
while  still  all  was  classic  in  the  aspect  of  the  Eternal  City, 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  49 

and  the  altars  of  the  gods  were  still  standing.  The  bishops 
and  their  trains  arrived,  making  a  little  stir,  sometimes 
even  at  the  marble  porticoes  of  great  mansions  where  the 
master  or  mistress  still  professed  a  languid  devotion  to  Jove 
or  Mercury.  Jerome,  burnt  brown  by  Egyptian  suns,  meagre 
and  sinewy  in  his  worn  robe,  with  a  humble  brother  or 
two  in  his  train,  accepted,  after  a  little  modest  difficulty, 
the  invitation  or  the  allotment  which  led  him  to  the  Aven- 
tine,  to  the  palace  of  Marcella,  where  he  was  already  well 
known,  and  where,  though  his  eyes  were  downcast  with  a 
becoming  reserve  at  the  sight  of  all  the  ladies,  he  yet  felt 
it  right  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Apostle  and  industri- 
ously overcome  his  own  bashfulness.  It  was  not  perhaps  a 
quality  very  strong  in  his  nature,  and  very  soon  his  new 
and  splendid  habitation  became  to  the  ascetic  a  home  more 
dear  than  any  he  had  yet  known. 

It  is  curious  to  find  how  completely  the  principle  of  the 
association  and  friendship  of  a  man  and  woman,  failing 
closer  ties,  was  adopted  and  recognised  among  these  mystics 
and  ascetics,  without  apparent  fear  of  the  comments  of  the 
world,  or  any  of  the  self-consciousness  which  so  often 
spoils  such  a  relationship  in  ordinary  society.  Perhaps 
the  gossips  smiled  even  then  upon  the  close  alliance 
of  Jerome  with  Paula,  or  Rufinus  with  Melania.  There 
were  calumnies  abroad  of  the  coarsest  sort,  as  was  inevi- 
table ;  but  neither  monk  nor  lady  seem  to  have  been  affected 
by  them.  It  has  constantly  been  so  in  the  history  of  the 
Church,  and  it  is  interesting  to  collect  such  repeated  testi- 
mony from  the  most  unlikely  quarter,  to  the  advantage  of 
this  natural  association.  Women  have  had  hard  measure 
from  Catholic  doctors  and  saints.  Their  conventional  posi- 
tion, so  to  speak,  is  that  of  the  Seductress,  always  study- 
ing how  to  draw  the  thoughts  of  men  away  from  higher 
things.  The  East  and  the  West,  though  so  much  apart  on 
other  points,  are  at  one  in  this.  From  the  anguish  of  the 


50  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

fathers  in  the  desert  to  the  supposed  difficulties  of  the 
humblest  ordinary  priest  of  modern  times,  the  disturbing 
influence  is  always  supposed  to  be  that  of  the  woman. 
Gruesome  figure  as  he  was  for  any  such  temptation,  Antony  of 
Egypt  himself  was  driven  to  extremity  by  the  mere  thought 
of  her :  and  it  is  she  who  figures  as  danger  or  as  victim  in 
every  ultra-Protestant  plaint  over  the  condition  of  the  priest 
(except  in  Ireland,  wonderful  island  of  contradictions ! 
where  priests  and  all  men  are  more  moved  to  fighting  than 
to  love).  Yet  notwithstanding  there  has  been  no  founder 
of  ecclesiastical  institutions,  no  reformer,  scarcely  any  saint, 
who  has  not  been  accompanied  by  the  special  friendship 
and  affection  of  some  woman.  Jerome,  who  was  so  much 
the  reverse,  if  we  may  venture  to  use  these  words,  of  a 
drawing-room  hero,  a  man  more  used  to  vituperation  than  to 
gentleness  of  speech,  often  harsh  as  the  desert  from  which 
he  had  come,  was  a  notable  example  of  this  rule.  From  the 
time  of  his  arrival  on  the  Aventine  to  that  of  his  death,  his 
name  was  never  dissociated  from  that  of  Paula,  the  pious 
lady  par  excellence  of  the  group,  the  exquisite  and  delicate 
patrician  who  could  scarcely  plant  her  golden  shoe  firmly  on 
the  floor,  but  came  tottering  into  Marcella's  great  house 
with  a  slave  on  either  side  to  support  her,  in  all  the  languid 
grace  which  was  the  highest  fashion  of  the  time.  That  such 
an  example  of  conventional  delicacy  and  luxury  should  have 
become  the  humble  friend  and  secretary  of  Jerome,  and 
that  he,  the  pious  solitary,  acrid  with  opposition  and  con- 
troversy, should  have  found  in  this  fine  flower  of  society  his 
life-long  companion,  both  in  labour  and  life,  is  more  aston- 
ishing than  words  can  say. 

His  arrival  in  Marcella's  hospitable  house,  with  its  crowds 
of  feminine  visitors,  was  in  every  way  a  great  event.  It 
brought  the  ladies  into  the  midst  of  all  the  ecclesiastical 
questions  of  the  time:  and  one  can  imagine  how  they 
crowded  round  him  when  he  returned  from  the  sittings  of 


THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA. 


51 


the  Council  —  perhaps  in  the  stillness  of  the  evening  after 
the  dangerous  hour  of  sunset,  when  all  Kome  comes  forth  to 
breathe  again  —  assembling  upon  the  marble  terrace,  from 


THE   STEPS   OF  THE   CAPITOL. 


which  that  magical  scene  was  visible  at  their  feet :  the  long 
withdrawing  distance  beyond  the  river,  out  of  which  some 
gleam  might  be  apparent  of  the  great  church  which  already 


52  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

covered  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  white  crest  of 
the  Capitol  close  at  hand,  and  the  lights  of  the  town  scat- 
tered dimly  like  glowworms  among  the  wide  openings  and 
level  lines  of  classical  building  which  made  the  Rome  of  the 
time.  The  subjects  discussed  were  not  precisely  those  which 
the  lighter  conventional  fancy,  Boccaccio  or  Watteau,  has 
associated  with  such  groups,  any  more  than  the  dark  monk 
resembled  the  troubadour.  But  they  were  subjects  which 
up  to  the  present  day  have  never  lost  their  interest.  The 
debates  of  the  Council  were  chiefly  taken  up  with  an  ex- 
tremely abstruse  heresy,  concerning  the  humanity  of  our 
Lord,  how  far  the  nature  of  man  existed  in  him  in  connec- 
tion with  the  nature  of  God,  and  whether  the  Kedeemer  of 
mankind  had  taken  upon  himself  a  mere  ethereal  appear- 
ance of  flesh,  or  an  actual  human  body,  tempted  as  we  are 
and  subject  to  all  the  influences  which  affect  man.  It  is  a 
question  which  has  arisen  again  and  again  at  various  periods 
and  in  various  manners,  and  the  subtleties  of  such  a  con- 
troversy have  proved  of  the  profoundest  interest  to  many 
minds.  Jerome  was  not  alone  to  report  to  those  eager 
listeners  the  course  of  the  debates,  and  to  demolish  over 
again  the  intricate  arguments  by  which  that  assembly  of 
divines  wrought  itself  to  fever  heat.  The  great  Bishop 
Epiphanius,  the  great  heresy-hunter  of  his  day  —  who  had 
fathomed  all  the  fallacious  reasonings  of  all  the  schismatics, 
and  could  detect  a  theological  error  at  the  distance  of  a 
continent,  in  whatever  garb  it  might  shield  itself  —  was  the 
guest  of  Paula,  and  no  doubt,  along  with  his  hostess,  would 
often  join  these  gatherings.  The  two  doctors  thus  brought 
together  would  vie  with  each  other  in  making  the  course  of 
the  controversy  clear  to  the  women,  who  hung  upon  their 
lips  with  keen  apprehension  of  every  phrase  and  the  enthu- 
siastic partisanship  which  inspires  debate.  There  could  be 
no  better  audience  for  the  fine-drawn  arguments  which  such 
a  controversy  demands.  How  strange  to  think  that  these 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  53 

hot  discussions  were  going  on,  and  the  flower  of  the  artificial 
society  of  Rome  keenly  occupied  by  such  a  question,  while 
still  the  shadow  of  Jove  lingered  on  the  Capitol,  and  the 
Eome  of  the  heathen  emperors,  the  Rome  of  the  great  Re- 
public, stood  white  and  splendid,  a  shadow,  yet  a  mighty 
one,  upon  the  seven  hills  ! 

Before  his  arrival  in  Rome,  Jerome  had  been  but  little 
known  to  the  general  world.  His  name  had  been  heard  in 
connection  with  some  eloquent  letters  which  had  flown  about 
from  hand  to  hand  among  the  finest  circles ;  but  his  true 
force  and  character  were  better  known  in  the  East  than  in 
the  West,  and  it  was  in  part  this  Council  which  gave  him 
his  due  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  Church.  He  was  no  priest 
to  be  promoted  to  bishoprics  or  established  in  high  places. 
He  had  indeed  been  consecrated  against  his  will  by  an 
enthusiastic  prelate,  eager  to  secure  his  great  services  to  the 
Church ;  but,  monk  and  ascetic  as  he  was,  he  had  no  inclina- 
tion towards  the  sacerdotal  character,  and  had  said  but  one 
mass,  immediately  after  his  ordination,  and  no  more.  It 
was  not  therefore  as  spiritual  director  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  words  that  he  found  his  place  in  Marcella's  house, 
but  at  first  at  least  as  a  visitor  merely  and  probably  for 
the  time  of  the  Council  alone.  But  the  man  of  the  desert 
would  seem  to  have  been  charmed  out  of  himself  by  the 
unaccustomed  sweetness  of  that  gentle  life.  He  would  in- 
deed have  been  hard  to  please  if  he  had  not  felt  the  attrac- 
tion of  such  a  retreat,  not  out  of,  but  on  the  edge  of,  the 
great  world,  with  its  excitements  and  warfare  within  reach, 
the  distant  murmur  of  the  crowd,  the  prospect  of  the  great 
city  with  its  lights  and  rumours,  yet  sacred  quiet  and  de- 
lightful sympathy  within.  The  little  community  had  given 
up  the  luxuries  of  the  age,  but  they  could  not  have  given  up 
the  refinements  of  gentle  breeding,  the  -high-born  manners 
and  grace,  the  charm  of  educated  voices  and  cultivated 
minds.  And  there  was  even  more  than  these  attractions  to 


54  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

gratify  the  scholar.  Not  an  allusion  could  be  made  to  the 
studies  of  which  he  was  most  proud,  the  rugged  Hebrew 
which  he  had  painfully  mastered,  or  ornate  Greek,  but  some 
quick  intelligence  there  would  take  it  up;  and -the  poets 
and  sages  of  their  native  tongue,  the  Cicero  and  Virgil  from 
whom  he  could  not  wean  himself  even  in  the  desert,  were 
their  own  literature,  their  valued  inheritance.  And  not  in 
the  most  devoted  community  of  monks  could  the  great 
orator  have  found  such  undivided  attention  and  interest 
in  his  work  as  among  the  ladies  of  the  Aventine,  or  soc 
retaries  so  eager  and  ready  to  help,  so  proud  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  it.  He  was  at  the  same  time  within  reach  of 
Bishop  Damasus,  a  man  of  many  experiences,  who  seems  to 
have  loved  him  as  a  son,  and  who  not  only  made  him  his 
secretary,  but  his  private  counsellor  in  many  difficulties  and 
dangers  :  and  Jerome  soon  became  the  centre  also  of  a  little 
band  of  chosen  friends,  distinguished  personages  in  Koman 
society  connected  in  faith  and  in  blood  with  the  sisterhood, 
whom  he  speaks  of  as  Daniel,  Ananias,  Azarias,  and  Misael, 
some  of  whom  were  his  own  old  companions  and  school- 
fellows, all  deeply  attached  to  him  and  proud  of  his  friend- 
ship. No  more  delightful  position  could  have  been  imagined 
for  the  repose  and  strengthening  of  a  man  who  had  endured 
many  hardships,  and  who  had  yet  before  him  much  more 
to  bear. 

Jerome  remained  nearly  three  years  in  this  happy  retreat, 
and  it  was  here  that  he  executed  the  first  portion  of  his 
great  work,  that  first  authoritative  translation  of  the  entire 
Canon  of  Scripture  which  still  retains  its  place  in  the 
Church  of  Eome  —  the  Vulgate,  so  named  when  the  Latin 
of  Jerome,  which  is  by  no  means  that  of  Cicero,  was  the 
language  of  the  crowd.  In  every  generation  what  is  called 
the  higher  education  of  women  is  treated  as  a  new  and  sur- 
prising thing  by  the  age,  as  if  it  were  the  greatest  novelty ; 
but  we  doubt  whether  Girton  itself  could  produce  graduates 


iv.]  THE  SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  55 

as  capable  as  Paula  and  Marcella  of  helping  in  this  work, 
discussing  the  turning  of  a  phrase  or  the  meaning  of  an 
abstruse  Hebrew  word,  and  often  holding  their  own  opinion 
against  that  of  the  learned  writer  whose  scribes  they  were 
so  willing  to  be.  This  undertaking  gave  a  double  charm  to 
the  life,  which  went  on  with  much  variety  and  animation, 
with  news  from  all  quarters,  with  the  constant  excitement 
of  a  new  charity  established,  a  new  community  founded :  and 
never  without  amusement  either,  much  knowledge  of  the 
sayings  and  doings  of  society  outside,  visits  from  the  finest 
persons,  and  a  daily  entertainment  in  the  flutterings  of 
young  Blsesilla  between  the  world  and  the  convent,  and 
her  pretty  ways,  so  true  a  woman  of  the  world,  yet  all  the 
same  a  predestined  saint:  and  the  doings  of  Fabiola,  one 
day  wholly  absorbed  in  the  foundation  of  her  great  hospital, 
the  first  in  Borne,  the  next  not  so  sure  in  her  mind  that  love, 
even  by  means  of  a  second  divorce,  might  not  win  the  day 
over  devotion.  Even  Paula  in  these  days  was  but  half  de- 
cided, and  came,  a  dazzling  vision  in  her  jewels  and  her 
crown,  to  visit  her  friends,  in  all  the  pomp  of  autumnal 
beauty,  among  her  daughters,  of  whom  that  serious  little 
maiden  Eustochium  was  the  only  one  quite  detached  from 
the  world.  Eor  was  there  not  also  going  on  under  their  eyes 
the  gentle  wooing  of  Pammachius  and  Paulina  to  make  it 
apparent  to  the  world  that  the  ladies  on  the  Aventine  did 
not  wholly  discredit  the  ordinary  ties  of  life,  although  they 
considered  with  St.  Paul  that  the  other  was  the  better  way  ? 
The  lovers  were  as  devout  and  as  much  given  up  to  good 
works  as  any  of  them,  yet,  as  even  Jerome  might  pardon 
once  in  a  way,  preferred  to  the  cloister  the  common  happi- 
ness of  life.  These  good  works  were  the  most  wonderful 
part  of  all,  for  every  member  of  the  community  was  rich. 
Their  fortunes  were  like  the  widow's  cruse.  One  hears  of 
great  foundations  like  that  of  Eabiola's  hospital  and  Me- 
lania's  provision  for  the  monks  in  Africa,  for  which  every- 


56  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

thing  was  sacrificed;  yet,  next  day,  next  year,  renewed 
beneficences  were  forthcoming,  and  always  a  faithful  in- 
tendant,  a  good  steward,  to  continue  the  bountiful  supplies. 
So  wonderful  indeed  are  these  liberalities,  and  so  extraordi- 
nary the  details,  that  it  is  surprising  to  find  that  no  learned 
German,  or  other  savant,  has,  as  yet,  attempted  to  prove 
that  the  fierce  and  vivid  Jerome  never  existed,  that  his 
letters  were  the  work  of  half  a  dozen  hands,  and  the  subjects 
of  his  brilliant  narrative  altogether  fictitious  —  Melania  and 
Paula  being  but  mythical  repetitions  of  the  same  incident, 
wrapt  in  the  colours  of  fable.  This  hypothesis  might  be 
made  to  seem  very  possible  if  it  were  not,  perhaps,  a  little  too 
late  in  the  centuries  for  the  operations  of  that  high-handed 
criticism,  and  Jerome  himself  a  very  hard  fact  to  encounter. 
But  the  great  wealth  of  these  ladies  remains  one  of  the 
most  singular  circumstances  in  the  story.  When  they  sell 
and  sacrifice  everything  it  is  clear  it  must  only  be  their  float- 
ing possessions,  leaving  untouched  the  capital,  as  we  should 
say,  or  the  estates,  perhaps,  more  justly,  the  wealthy  source 
from  which  the  continued  stream  flowed.  This  gave  a 
splendour  and  a  largeness  of  living  to  the  home  on  the 
Aventine.  There  was  no  need  to  send  any  petitioner  away 
empty,  charity  being  the  rule  of  life,  and  no  thought  having 
as  yet  entered  the  most  elevated  mind  that  to  give  to  the 
poor  was  inexpedient  for  them,  and  apt  to  establish  a  pauper 
class,  dependent  and  willing  to  be  so.  These  ladies  filled 
with  an  even  and  open  hand  every  wallet  and  every  mouth. 
They  received  orphans,  they  provided  for  widows,  they  filled 
the  poor  quarters  below  the  hill  —  where  all  the  working 
people  about  the  Marmorata  clustered  near  the  river  bank, 
in  the  garrets  and  courtyards  of  the  old  houses  —  with 
asylums  and  places  of  refuge.  The  miserable  and  idle 
populace  of  which  the  historian  speaks  so  contemptuously, 
the  fellows  who  hung  about  the  circuses,  and  had  no  name 
but  the  nicknames  of  coarsest  slang,  the  Cabbage-feeders, 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF   MARCELLA.  57 

the  Sausage-eaters,  &c.,  the  Porringers  and  Gluttons,  were, 
no  doubt,  left  all  the  more  free  to  follow  their  own  foul 
devices ;  but  the  poor  women,  who  though  perhaps  far  from 
blameless  suffer  most  in  the  debasement  of  the  population, 
and  the  unhappy  little  swarms  of  children,  profited  by  this 
universal  balm  of  charity,  and  let  us  hope  grew  up  to  some- 
thing a  little  better  than  their  sires.  For  however  paganism 
might  linger  among  the  higher  class,  the  multitudes  were  all 
nominally  Christian.  It  was  to  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles 
that  they  made  their  pilgrimages,  rather  than  to  the  four 
hundred  temples  of  the  gods.  "  For  all  its  gilding  the 
Capitol  looks  dingy,"  says  Jerome  himself  in  one  of  his 
letters ;  "  every  temple  in  Rome  is  covered  with  soot  and 
cobwebs,  and  the  people  pour  past  those  half-ruined  shrines 
to  visit  the  tombs  of  the  apostles." 

The  house  of  Marcella  was  in  the  condition  we  have  at- 
tempted to  describe  when  Jerome  became  its  guest.  It  was 
in  no  way  more  rigid  in  its  laws  than  at  the  beginning.  The 
little  ecdesia  domestica,  as  he  happily  called  it,  seems  to  have 
been  entirely  without  rule  or  conventual  order.  They  sang 
psalms  together  (sometimes  we  are  led  to  believe,  in  the 
original  Hebrew  learned  for  the  purpose  —  but  it  must  have 
been  few  who  attained  to  this  height),  they  read  together, 
they  held  their  little  conferences  on  points  of  doctrine,  with 
much  consultation  of  learned  texts  ;  but  there  is  no  mention 
even  of  any  regular  religious  service,  much  less  of  matins, 
and  vespers,  and  nones  and  compline,  and  the  other  ritual- 
istic divisions  of  a  monastic  day ;  for  indeed  no  rule  had 
been  as  yet  invented  for  any  coenobites  of  the  West.  We 
do  not  hear  even  of  a  daily  mass.  Often  there  were  deser- 
tions from  the  ranks,  sometimes  a  young  maiden  withdraw- 
ing from  the  social  enclosure,  sometimes  a  young  widow 
drawn  back  into  the  vortex  of  the  fashionable  world.  But 
on  the  whole  the  record  of  the  little  domestic  church,  with 
its  bodyguard  of  faithful  friends  and  servitors  outside,  and 


58  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Jerome,  its  pride  and  crown  of  glory,  within,  is  one  of 
serene  and  happy  life,  dignified  by  everything  that  was  best 
in  the  antique  world. 

It  was  after  the  arrival  of  Jerome  that  the  little  tragedy 
of  Blsesilla,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Paula,  occurred,  rend- 
ing their  gentle  hearts.  "  Our  dear  widow,"  as  Jerome 
called  her,  had  no  idea  of  second  marriage  in  her  mind. 
The  first,  it  would  appear,  had  not  been  happy ;  and  Blae- 
silla,  fair  and  rich  and  young,  had  every  mind  to  enjoy  her 
freedom,  her  fine  dresses,  and  all  the  pleasures  of  her  youth. 
Safely  lodged  under  her  mother's  wing,  with  those  irre- 
proachable friends  on  the  Aventine  about  her,  no  gossip 
touched  her  gentle  name.  The  community  amused  itself 
with  her  light-hearted  ways.  "  Our  widow  loves  to  adorn 
herself.  She  is  the  whole  day  before  her  mirror,"  says 
Jerome,  and  there  is  no  harsh  tone  in  his  voice.  But  in 
the  midst  of  her  gay  and  innocent  life  she  fell  ill  of  a  fever, 
no  unusual  thing.  It  lingered,  however,  more  than  a  month 
and  took  a  dangerous  form,  so  that  the  doctors  began  to 
despair.  When  things  were  at  this  point  Blaesilla  had  a 
dream  or  vision,  in  her  fever,  in  which  the  Saviour  appeared 
to  her  and  bade  her  arise  as  He  had  done  to  Lazarus.  It 
was  the  crisis  of  the  disease,  and  she  immediately  began  to 
recover,  with  the  deepest  faith  that  she  had  been  cured  by  a 
miracle.  The  butterfly  was  touched  beyond  measure  by  this 
divine  interposition,  as  she  believed,  in  her  favour,  and  as 
soon  as  she  was  well,  made  up  her  mind  to  devote  herself  to 
God.  "An  extraordinary  thing  has  happened,"  cries  Jerome. 
"Blsesilla  has  put  on  a  brown  gown!  What  a  scandal  is 
this  ! "  He  launches  forth  thereupon  into  a  diatribe  upon 
the  fashionable  ladies,  with  faces  of  gypsum  like  idols,  who 
dare  not  shed  a  tear  lest  they  should  spoil  their  painted 
cheeks,  and  who  are  the  true  scandal  to  Christianity :  then 
narrates  with  growing  tenderness  the  change  that  has  taken 
place  in  the  habits  of  the  young  penitent.  She,  whose 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF   MARCELLA.  59 

innocent  head  was  tortured  with  curls  and  plaits  and 
crowned  with  the  fashionable  mitella,  now  finds  a  veil 
enough  for  her.  She  lies  on  the  ground  who  found  the  soft- 
est cushions  hard,  and  is  up  the  first  in  the  morning  to  sing 
Alleluia  in  her  silvery  voice. 

The  conversion  rang  through  Rome  all  the  more  that 
Blsesilla  was  known  to  have  had  no  inclination  toward 
austerity  of  life.  Her  relations,  half  pagan  and  altogether 
worldly,  were  hot  against  the  fanatic  monk,  who  according 
to  the  usual  belief  tyrannised  over  the  whole  house  in  which 
he  had  been  so  kindly  received,  and  the  weak-minded  mother 
who  had  lent  herself  to  his  machinations.  The  question 
fired  Rome,  and  became  a  matter  of  discussion  under  every 
portico  and  wherever  men  or  women  assembled.  Was  it 
lawful,  had  it  any  warrant  in  law  or  history,  this  new  folly 
of  opposing  marriage  and  representing  celibacy  as  a  happier 
and*  holier  state  ?  It  was  against  every  tradition  of  the 
race ;  it  tore  families  in  pieces,  abstracted  from  society  its 
most  brilliant  members,  alienated  the  patrimony  of  families, 
interfered  with  succession  and  every  natural  law.  In  the 
turmoil  raised  by  this  event,  a  noisy  public  controversy 
arose.  Two  assailants  presented  themselves,  one  a  priest, 
who  had  been  for  a  time  a  monk,  and  one  a  layman,  to 
maintain  the  popular  canon,  the  superiority  of  marriage 
and  the  natural  life  of  the  world.  These  arguments  had  a 
great  effect  upon  the  public  mind,  naturally  prone  to  take 
fright  at  any  interference  with  its  natural  laws.  They  had 
very  serious  results  at  a  later  period  both  in  the  life  of 
Paula  and  that  of  Jerome,  and  they  seem  to  have  threat- 
ened for  a  time  serious  injury  to  the  newly  established  con- 
vents which  Marcella's  community  had  planted  everywhere, 
and  from  which  half-hearted  sisters  took  this  opportunity  of 
separating  themselves.  It  is  amusing  to  find  that,  by  a 
curious  and  furious  twist  of  the  usual  argument,  Jerome  in 
his  indignant  and  not  always  temperate  defence  describes 


GO  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

these  deserters  as  old  and  ugly,  and  unable  to  find  husbands 
notwithstanding  the  most  desperate  efforts.  It  has  been 
very  common  to  allege  this  as  a  reason  for  the  self-dedica- 
tion of  nuns :  and  it  is  always  a  handy  missile  to  throw. 

Jerome  was  not  the  man  to  let  any  such  fine  opening  for 
a  controversy  pass.  He  burst  forth  upon  his  opponents, 
thundering  from  the  heights  of  the  Aventine,  reducing  the 
feeble  writers  who  opposed  him  to  powder.  Helvidius,  the 
layman  above  mentioned,  had  taken  up  the  question  —  a 
question  always  offensive  and  injurious  to  natural  senti- 
ment and  prejudice,  exclusive  even  of  religious  feeling,  and 
which,  whatever  opinions  may  prevail,  it  must  always  be 
profane  to  touch  —  of  the  Virgin  Mary  herself,  and  the  ex- 
istence of  persons  called  brothers  and  sisters  of  our  Lord. 
To  him  Jerome  replied  by  a  flood  of  angry  eloquence,  as 
well  as  some  cogent  argument  —  though  argument,  however 
strong,  is  insupportable  on  such  a  subject.  And  he  launched 
forth  upon  the  other,  Jovinian,  the  false  monk,  that  famous 
letter  on  Virginity,  nominally  addressed  to  Eustochium,  in 
which  one  of  the  most  trenchant  pictures  ever  made  of 
society,  both  lay  and  clerical  —  the  habits,  the  ideas,  the 
follies  of  debased  and  fallen  Borne  —  is  of  far  more  force 
and  importance  than  the  argument,  and  furnishes  us  with 
such  a  spectacle  as  very  few  writers  at  any  time  or  in  any 
place  are  capable  of  placing  before  the  eyes  of  the  world.  I 
have  already  quoted  from  this  wonderful  composition  the 
portrait  of  the  popular  priest. 

The  foolish  virgin  who  puts  on  an  appearance  of  indiffer- 
ence to  worldly  things,  and  "  under  the  ensign  of  a  holy 
profession  draws  towards  her  the  regard  of  men/7  is  treated 
with  equal  severity. 

We  cast  out  and  banish  from  our  sight  those  virgins  who  only  wish 
to  seem  to  be  so.  Their  robes  have  but  a  narrow  stripe  of  purple,  they 
let  their  hair  hang  about  their  shoulders,  their  sleeves  are  short  and 
narrow,  and  they  have  cheap  shoes  upon  their  feet.  This  is  all  their 
sanctity.  They  make  by  these  pretences  a  higher  price  for  their  inno- 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY   OF   MARCELLA.  Gl 

cence.  Avoid,  dear  Eustochium,  the  secret  thought  that  having  ceased 
to  court  attention  in  cloth  of  gold  you  may  begin  to  do  so  in  mean 
attire.  When  you  come  into  an  assembly  of  the  brothers  and  sisters 
do  not,  like  some,  choose  the  lowest  seat  or  plead  that  you  are  un- 
worthy of  a  footstool.  Do  not  speak  with  a  faltering  voice  as  if  worn 
out  with  fasting,  or  lean  upon  the  shoulders  of  your  neighbours  as  if 
fainting.  There  are  some  who  thus  disfigure  their  faces  that  they  may 
appear  to  men  to  fast.  As  soon  as  they  are  seen,  they  begin  to  groan, 
they  look  down,  they  cover  their  faces,  all  but  one  eye.  Their  dress 
is  sombre,  their  girdles  are  of  sackcloth.  Others  assume  the  mien  of 
men,  blushing  that  they  have  been  born  women,  who  cut  their  hair 
short,  and  walk  abroad  with  effrontery,  confronting  the  world  with  the 
impudent  faces  of  eunuchs.  ...  I  have  seen,  but  will  not  name,  one 
among  the  noblest  of  Rome  who  in  the  very  basilica  of  the  blessed 
Peter  gave  alms  with  her  own  hands  at  the  head  of  her  retinue  of  ser- 
vants, but  struck  in  the  face  a  poor  woman  who  had  twice  held  out 
her  hand.  Flee  also  the  men  who  wear  an  iron  chain,  who  have  long 
hair  like  women  against  the  rule  of  the  Apostle,  a  miserable  black  robe, 
who  go  barefooted  in  the  cold,  and  have  in  appearance  at  least  an  air 
of  sadness  and  anxiety. 

The  following  sketch  of  the  married  woman  who  thinks 
of  the  things  of  the  world,  how  she  may  please  her  husband, 
while  the  unmarried  are  free  to  please  God,  has  an  interest 
long  outliving  the  controversy,  in  the  light  it  throws  upon 
contemporary  Eoman  life. 

Do  you  think  there  is  no  difference  between  one  who  spends  her 
time  in  fastings,  and  humbles  herself  night  and  day  in  prayer  —  and 
her  who  must  prepare  her  face  for  the  coming  of  her  husband,  orna- 
ment herself,  and  put  on  airs  of  fascination?  The  first  veils  her  beauty 
and  the  graces  which  she  despises ;  the  other  paints  herself  before  a 
mirror,  to  make  herself  more  fair  than  God  has  made  her.  Then  come 
the  children,  crying,  rioting,  hanging  about  her  neck,  waiting  for  her 
kiss.  Expenses  follow  without  end,  her  time  is  spent  in  making  up 
her  accounts,  her  purse  always  open  in  her  hand.  Here  there  is  a 
troop  of  cooks,  their  garments  girded  like  soldiers  for  the  battle,  hash- 
ing and  steaming.  Then  the  women  spinning  and  babbling.  Anon 
comes  the  husband,  followed  by  his  friends.  The  wife  flies  about  like 
a  swallow  from  one  end  of  the  house  to  the  other,  to  see  that  all  is 
right,  the  beds  made,  the  marble  floors  shining,  flowers  in  the  vases, 
the  dinner  prepared.  Is  there  in  all  that,  I  ask,  a  thought  of  God  ? 
Are  these  happy  homes  ?  No,  the  fear  of  God  is  absent  there,  where 
the  drum  is  sounded,  the  lyre  struck,  where  the  flute  breathes  out  and 
the  cymbals  clash.  Then  the  parasite  abandons  shame  and  glories  in 
it,  if  he  amuses  the  host  who  has  invited  him.  The  victims  of  debauch 
have  their  place  at  these  feasts  ;  they  appear  half  naked  in  transparent 
garments  which  unclean  eyes  see  through.  What  part  is  there  for  the 
wife  in  these  orgies  ?  She  must  learn  to  take  pleasure  in  such  scenes, 
or  else  to  bring  discord  into  her  house, 


62  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

He  paints  for  us,  in  another  letter,  a  companion  picture 
of  the  widow  remarried. 

Your  contract  of  marriage  will  scarcely  be  written  when  you  will  be 
compelled  to  make  your  will.  Your  new  husband  pretends  to  be  very 
ill,  and  makes  a  will  in  your  favour,  desiring  you  to  do  the  same.  But 
he  lives,  and  it  is  you  who  die.  And  if  it  happens  that  you  have  sons 
by  your  second  marriage,  war  blazes  forth  in  your  house,  a  domestic 
contest  without  term  or  conclusion.  Those  who  owe  life  to  you,  you 
are  not  permitted  to  love  equally,  fully.  The  second  envies  the  caress 
which  you  give  to  the  son  of  the  first.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  he 
who  has  children  by  another  wife,  although  you  may  be  the  most  lov- 
ing of  mothers,  you  are  condemned  as  a  stepmother  by  all  the  rhetoric 
of  the  comedies,  the  pantomimes,  and  orators.  If  your  stepson  has  a 
headache  you  have  poisoned  him.  If  he  eats  nothing  you  starve  him, 
if  you  serve  him  his  food  it  is  worse  still.  What  compensation  is  there 
in  a  second  marriage  to  make  up  for  so  many  woes  ? 

This  tremendous  outburst  and  others  of  a  similar  kind 
raised  up,  as  was  natural,  a  strong  feeling  against  Jerome. 
It  was  not  likely  that  the  originals  of  these  trenchant 
sketches  would  forgive  easily  the  man  who  put  them  up  in 
effigy  on  the  very  walls  of  Eome.  That  the  pictures  were 
identified  was  clear  from  another  letter,  in  which  he  asks 
whether  he  is  never  to  speak  of  any  vice  or  folly  lest  he 
should  offend  a  certain  Onasus,  who  took  everything  to 
himself.  Little  cared  he  whom  he  offended,  or  what  galled 
jade  might  wince.  But  at  last  the  remonstrances  of  his 
friends  subdued  his  rage.  "  When  you  read  this  you  will 
bend  your  brows  and  check  my  freedom,  putting  a  finger  on 
my  mouth  to  stop  me  from  speaking,"  he  wrote  to  Marcella. 
It  was  full  time  that  the  prudent  mistress  of  the  house 
which  contained  such  a  champion  should  interfere. 

While  still  the  conflict  raged  which  had  been  roused  by 
the  retirement  of  Blaesilla  from  the  world,  and  which  had 
thus  widened  into  the  general  question,  far  more  important 
than  any  individual  case,  between  the  reforming  party  in 
the  Church,  the  Puritans  of  the  time  —  then  specially  repre- 
sented by  the  new  development  of  monasticism  —  and  the 
world  which  it  called  all  elevated  souls  to  abandon :  inci- 


iv.]  THE   SOCIETY  OF  MARCELLA.  63 

dents  were  happening  which  plunged  the  cheerful  home  on 
the  Aventine  into  sorrow  and  made  another  noble  house  in 
Borne  desolate.  The  young  convert  in  the  bloom  of  her 
youthful  devotion,  who  had  been  raised  up  miraculously  as 
they  all  thought  from  her  sick  bed  in  order  that  she  might 
devote  her  life  to  Christ,  was  again  struck  down  by  sickness, 
and  this  time  without  any  intervention  of  a  miracle.  Blse- 
silla  died  in  the  fulness  of  her  youth,  scarcely  twenty-two, 
praying  only  that  she  might  be  forgiven  for  not  having  been 
able  to  do  what  she  had  wished  to  do  in  the  service  of  her 
Lord.  She  was  a  great  lady,  though  she  had  put  her  natural 
splendour  away  from  her,  and  it  was  with  all  the  pomp  of  a 
patrician  funeral  that  she  was  carried  to  her  rest.  It  is 
again  Jerome  who  makes  visible  to  us  the  sad  scene  of  this 
funeral,  and  the  feeling  of  the  multitude  towards  the  austere 
reformers  who  had  by  their  cruel  exactions  cut  off  this 
flower  of  Roman  society  before  her  time.  Paula,  the  be- 
reaved mother,  followed,  as  was  the  custom,  the  bier  of  her 
daughter  through  the  crowded  streets  of  Kome,  scarcely  able 
in  the  depths  of  her  grief  to  support  herself,  and  at  last 
fell  fainting  into  the  arms  of  the  attendants  and  had  to  be 
carried  home  insensible.  At  this  sight,  which  might  have 
touched  their  hearts,  the  multitude  with  one  voice  cried  out 
against  the  distracted  mother.  "  She  weeps,  the  daughter 
whom  she  has  killed  with  fastings,"  they  cried.  "Why 
ate  not  these  detestable  monks  driven  from  the  city  ?  why 
are  they  not  stoned  or  thrown  into  the  river  ?  It  is  they 
who  have  seduced  this  miserable  woman  to  be  herself  a 
monk  against  her  will  —  this  is  why  she  weeps  for  her  child 
as  no  woman  has  ever  wept  before."  Paula,  let  us  hope, 
did  not  hear  these  cries  of  popular  rage.  The  streets  rung 
with  them,  the  populace  always  ready  for  tumult,  and  the 
disgusted  and  angry  nobles  encouraging  every  impulse 
towards  revolt.  No  doubt  many  of  the  higher  classes  had 
looked  011  with  anxiety  and  alarm  at  the  new  movement 


64      THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.   [CH.  iv. 

which  dissipated  among  the  poor  so  many  fine  inheritances 
and  threatened  to  carry  off  out  of  the  world,  of  which  they 
had  been  the  ornaments,  so  many  of  the  most  distinguished 
women.  Any  sudden  rising  which  might  kill  or  banish 
the  pestilent  monk  or  disperse  the  troublesome  community 
would  naturally  find  favour  in  their  eyes. 


THE  LATERAN  FROM  THE  AVENTINE. 


PORTICO  OF  OCTAVIA. 


CHAPTER    V. 


PAULA. 

PAULA  was  a  woman  of  very  different  character  from  the 
passionate  and  austere  Melania  who  preceded  and  re- 
sembled her  in  many  details  of  her  career.  Full  of  tender 
and  yet  sprightly  humour,  of  love  and  gentleness  and  human 
kindness,  a  true  mother  benign  and  gracious,  yet  with  those 
individualities  of  lively  intelligence,  understanding,  and 
sympathy  which  quicken  that  mild  ideal  and  bring  in  all 
the  elements  of  friendship  and  the  social  life  —  she  was  the 
most  important  of  those  visitors  and  associates  who  made 
the  House  on  the  Aventine  the  fashion,  and  filled  it  with 
all  that  was  best  in  Rome.  Though  her  pedigree  seems  a 
little  delusive,  her  relationship  to  JSmilius  Paulus  resolving 
itself  into  a  descent  from  his  sister  through  her  own  mother, 
it  is  yet  apparent  that  her  claims  of  the  highest  birth  and 
position  were  fully  acknowledged,  and  that  no  Eoman  ma- 
r  G5 


66  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

tron  held  a  higher  or  more  honourable  place.  She  was  rich 
as  they  all  were,  highly  allied,  the  favourite  of  society, 
neglecting  none  of  its  laws,  though  always  with  a  love  of 
intellectual  intercourse  and  a  tendency  to  devotion.  Which 
of  these  tendencies  drew  her  first  towards  Marcella  and  her 
little  society  we  cannot  tell:  but  it  is  evident  that  both 
found  satisfaction  there,  and  were  quickened  by  the  strong 
impulse  given  by  Jerome  when  he. came  out  of  the  schools 
and  out  of  the  wilds,  at  once  Scholar  and  Hermit,  to  this 
house  of  friendship,  the  Ecclesia  Domestica  of  Rome.  That 
all  this  rising  tide  of  life,  the  books,  the  literary  work,  the 
ever-entertaining  companionship,  as  well  as  the  higher  in- 
fluence of  a  life  of  self-denial  and  renunciation,  as  under- 
stood in  those  days  —  should  have  at  first  added  a  charm 
even  to  that  existence  upon  its  border,  the  life  in  which 
every  motive  contradicted  the  new  law,  is  very  apparent. 
Many  a  great  lady,  deeply  plunged  in  all  the  business  of  the 
world,  has  felt  the  same  attraction,  the  intense  pleasure  of 
an  escape  from  those  gay  commotions  which  in  the  light  of 
the  other  life  seem  so  insignificant  and  wearisome,  the  sen- 
sation of  rest  and  tranquillity  and  something  higher,  purer, 
in  the  air  —  which  yet  perhaps  at  first  gave  a  zest  to  the 
return  into  the  world,  in  itself  once  more  a  relief  from  that 
higher  tension  and  those  deeper  requirements.  The  process 
by  which  the  attraction  grew  is  very  comprehensible  also. 
Common  pleasures  and  inane  talk  of  society  grow  duller  and 
duller  in  comparison  with  the  conversation  full  of  wonders 
and  revelations  which  would  keep  every  faculty  in  exercise, 
the  mutual  studies,  the  awe  yet  exhilaration  of  mutual 
prayers  and  psalms,  the  realisation  of  spiritual  things.  And 
no  doubt  the  devout  child's  soul  so  early  fixed,  the  little 
daughter  who  had  thought  of  nothing  from  her  cradle  but 
the  service  of  God,  must  have  drawn  the  ever-tender,  ever- 
sympathetic  mother  still  nearer  to  the  centre  of  all.  The 
beautiful  mother  among  her  girls,  one  betrothed;  one  self- 


v.]  PAULA.  6? 

consecrated,  one  in  all  the  gay  emancipation  of  an  early 
widowhood,  affords  the  most  charming  picture  among  the 
graver  women  —  women  all  so  near  to  each  other  in  nature, 
—  mutually  related,  members  of  one  community,  linked  by 
every  bond  of  common  association  and  tradition. 

When  Blsesilla  on  her  recovery  from  her  illness  threw 
off  her  gaieties  and  finery,  put  on  the  brown  gown,  and 
adopted  all  the  rules  of  the  community,  the  life  of  Paula, 
trembling  between  two  spheres,  was  shaken  by  a  stronger 
impulse  than  ever  before.  But  how  difficult  was  any  decis- 
ion in  her  circumstances!  She  had  her  boy  and  girl  at 
home  as  yet  undeveloped  —  her  only  boy,  dragged  as  much 
as  might  be  to  the  other  side,  persuaded  to  think  his  mother 
a  fanatic  and  his  sisters  fools.  Paula  did  all  she  could  to 
combine  the  two  lives,  indulging  perhaps  in  an  excess  of 
austerities  under  the  cloth  of  gold  and  jewels  which,  as 
symbols  of  her  state  and  rank,  she  could  not  yet  put  off. 
The  death  of  Blaesilla  was  the  shock  which  shattered  her 
life  to  pieces.  Even  the  coarse  reproaches  of  the  streets 
show  us  with  what  anguish  of  mourning  this  first  breach  in 
her  family  overwhelmed  her.  "  This  is  why  she  weeps  for 
her  child  as  no  woman  has  ever  wept  before,"  the  crowd 
cried,  turning  her  sorrow  into  an  accusation,  as  if  she  had 
thus  acknowledged  her  own  fault  in  leaving  Blsesilla  to 
privations  she  was  not  able  to  endure.  Did  the  cruel  cen- 
sure perhaps  awake  an  echo  in  her  heart,  ready  as  all  hearts 
are  in  that  moment  of  prostration  to  blame  themselves  for 
something  neglected,  something  done  amiss  ?  At  least  it 
would  remind  Paula  that  she  herself  had  never  made  com- 
pletely this  sacrifice  which  her  child  had  made  with  such 
fatal  effect.  She  was  altogether  overcome  by  her  sorrow :  her 
sobs  and  cries  rent  the  hearts  of  her  friends.  She  refused 
all  food,  and  when  exhausted  by  the  paroxysms  of  violent 
grief  fell  into  a  lethargy  of  despair  more  alarming  still. 
When  every  one  else  had  tried  their  best  to  draw  her  from 


68  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

this  excess  of  affliction,  the  ladies  had  recourse  to  Jerome  in 
their  extremity :  for  it  was  clear  that  Paula  must  be  roused 
from  this  collapse  of  all  courage  and  hope,  or  she  must  die. 
Jerome  did  not  refuse  to  answer  the  appeal :  though  help- 
less as  even  the  most  anxious  affection  is  in  face  of  this 
anguish  of  the  mother  which  will  not  be  comforted,  he  did 
what  he  could;  he  wrote  to  her  from  the  house  of  their 
friends  who  shared  yet  could  not  still  her  sorrow,  a  letter  full 
of  grief  and  sympathy,  in  the  forlorn  hope  of  bringing  her 
back  to  life.  Such  letters  heaven  knows  are  common  enough. 
We  have  all  written,  and  most  of  us  have  received  them, 
and  found  in  their  tender  arguments,  in  their  assurances  of 
final  good  and  present  fellow  feeling,  only  fresh  pangs  and 
additional  sickness  of  heart.  Yet  Jerome's  letter  was  not 
of  a  common  kind.  No  one  could  have  touched  the  shrink- 
ing heart  with  a  softer  touch  than  this  fierce  controversialist, 
this  fiery  and  remorseless  champion :  for  he  had  yet  a  more 
effectual  spell  to  move  the  mourner,  in  that  he  was  himself 
a  mourner,  not  much  less  deeply  touched  than  she.  "  Who 
am  I,"  he  cries,  "  to  forbid  the  tears  of  a  mother  who  myself 
weep  ?  This  letter  is  written  in  tears.  He  is  not  the  best 
consoler  whom  his  own  groans  master,  whose  being  is  un- 
manned, whose  broken  words  distil  into  tears.  Yes,  Paula, 
I  call  to  witness  Christ  Jesus  whom  our  Blsesilla  now  fol- 
lows, and  the  angels  who  are  now  her  companions,  I,  too, 
her  father  in  the  spirit,  her  foster-father  in  affection,  could 
also  say  with  you  —  Cursed  be  the  day  that  I  was  born. 
Great  waves  of  doubt  surge  over  my  soul  as  over  yours. 
I,  too,  ask  myself  why  so  many  old  men  live  on,  why  the 
impious,  the  murderers,  the  sacrilegious,  live  and  thrive 
before  our  eyes,  while  blooming  youth  and  childhood  with- 
out sin  are  cut  off  in  their  flower."  It  is  not  till  after  he 
has  thus  wept  with  her  that  he  takes  a  severer  tone.  "  You 
deny  yourself  food,  not  from  desire  of  fasting,  but  of  sor- 
row. If  you  believed  your  daughter  to  be  alive,  you  would 


v.]  PAULA.  69 

not  thus  mourn  that  she  has  migrated  to  a  better  world. 
Have  you  no  fear  lest  the  Saviour  should  say  to  you,  '  Are 
you  angry,  Paula,  that  your  daughter  has  become  my  daugh- 
ter ?  Are  you  vexed  at  my  decree,  and  do  you  with  rebel- 
lious tears  grudge  me  the  possession  of  Blsesilla  ? '  At  the 
sound  of  your  cries  Jesus,  all-clement,  asks,  '  Why  do  you 
weep?  the  damsel  is  not  dead  but  sleepeth.'  And  when 
you  stretch  yourself  despairing  on  the  grave  of  your  child, 
the  angel  who  is  there  asks  sternly,  <  Why  seek  ye  the  liv- 
ing among  the  dead  ? '  '• 

In  conclusion  Jerome  adds  a  wonderful  vow :  "  So  long 
as  breath  animates  my  body,  so  long  as  I  continue  in  life,  I 
engage,  declare  and  promise  that  Blaesilla's  name  shall  be  for 
ever  on  my  tongue,  that  my  labours  shall  be  dedicated  to 
her  honour,  and  my  talents  devoted  to  her  praise.'7  It  was 
the  last  word  which  the  enthusiasm  of  tenderness  could  say : 
and  no  doubt  the  fervour  and  warmth  of  the  promise,  better 
kept  than  such  promises  usually  are,  gave  a  little  comfort 
to  the  sorrowful  soul. 

When  Paula  came  back  to  the  charities  and  devotions  of 
life  after  this  terrible  pause  a  bond  of  new  friendship  was 
formed  between  her  and  Jerome.  They  had  wept  together, 
they  bore  the  reproach  together,  if  perhaps  their  trembling 
hearts  might  feel  there  was  any  truth  in  it,  of  having  pos- 
sibly exposed  the  young  creature  they  had  lost  to  privations 
more  than  she  could  bear.  But  it  is  little  likely  that  this 
modern  refinement  of  feeling  affected  these  devoted  souls; 
for  such  privations  were  in  their  eyes  the  highest  privileges 
of  life,  and  in  fasting  man  was  promoted  to  eat  the  food  of 
angels.  At  all  events,  the  death  of  Blsesilla  made  a  new 
bond  between  them,  the  bond  of  a  mutual  and  most  dear 
remembrance  never  to  be  forgotten. 

This  natural  consequence  of  a  common  sorrow  inflamed 
the  popular  rage  against  Jerome  to  the  wildest  fury. 
Paula's  relations  and '  connections,  half  of  them,  as  in  most 


70  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

cases  in  the  higher  ranks  of  society,  still  pagan  —  who  now 
saw  before  them  the  almost  certain  alienation  to  charitable 
and  religious  purposes  of  Paula's  wealth,  pursued  him  with 
calumny  and  outrage,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  accuse  the 
lady  and  the  monk  of  a  shameful  relationship  and  every 
crime.  To  make  things  worse,  Damasus,  whose  friend  and 
secretary,  almost  his  son,  Jerome  had  been,  died  a  few 
months  after  Blsesilla,  depriving  him  at  once  of  that  high 
place  to  which  the  Pope's  favour  naturally  elevated  him. 
He  complains  of  the  difference  which  his  close  connection 
with  Paula's  family  had  made  on  the  general  opinion  of  him. 
"All,  almost  without  exception,  thought  me  worthy  of  the 
highest  sacerdotal  position ;  there  was  but  one  word  for  me 
in  the  world.  By  the  mouth  of  the  blessed  Damasus  it  was 
I  who  spoke.  Men  called  me  holy,  humble,  eloquent."  But 
all  this  had  changed  since  the  recent  events  in  Paula's 
house.  She  on  her  side,  wounded  to  the  heart  by  the 
reproaches  poured  upon  her,  and  the  shameful  slanders  of 
which  she  was  the  object,  and  which  had  no  doubt  stung 
her  into  renewed  life  and  energy,  resolved  upon  a  step 
stronger  than  that  of  joining  the  community,  and  announced 
her  intention  of  leaving  Rome,  seeking  a  refuge  in  the  holy 
city  of  Jerusalem,  and  shaking  the  dust  of  her  native  coun- 
try, where  she  had  been  so  vilified,  from  her  feet.  This 
resolution  was  put  to  Jerome's  account  as  might  have  been 
expected,  and  when  his  patron's  death  left  him  without  pro- 
tection every  enemy  he  had  ever  made,  and  no  doubt  they 
were  many,  was  let  loose.  He  whom  courtiers  had  sought, 
whose  hands  had  been  kissed  and  his  favour  implored  by 
all  who  sought  anything  from  the  Pope,  was  now  greeted 
when  he  appeared  in  the  streets  by  fierce  cries  of  "  Greek," 
"  Impostor,"  "  Monk,"  and  his  presence  became  a  danger  for 
the  peaceful  house  in  which  he  had  found  a  refuge. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  be  very  sorry  for  Jerome.     He 
had  not  minced  his  words ;  he  had  flung  libels  and  satires 


v.]  PAULA.  71 

about  that  must  have  stung  and  wounded  many,  and  in  such 
matters  reprisals  are  inevitable.  But  Paula  had  done  no 
harm.  Even  granting  the  case  that  Blsesilla's  health  had 
been  ruined  by  fasting,  the  mother  herself  had  gone  through 
the  same  privations  and  exulted  in  them:  and  her  only 
fault  was  to  have  followed  and  sympathised  in,  with  enthu- 
siasm, the  new  teaching  and  precepts  of  the  divine  life  in 
the  form  which  was  most  highly  esteemed  in  her  time.  No 
cry  from  that  silent  woman  comes  into  the  old  world,  ring- 
ing with  so  many  outcries,  where  the  rude  Roman  crowd 
bellowed  forth  abuse,  and  the  ladies  on  their  silken  couches 
whispered  the  scandal  of  Paula's  liaison  to  each  other,  and 
the  men  scoffed  and  sneered  over  their  banquets  at  the  mere 
thought  of  such  a  friendship  being  innocent.  Some  one  of 
their  enemies  ventured  to  speak  or  write  publicly  the  vile 
accusation,  and  was  instantly  brought  to  book  by  Jerome, 
and  publicly  forswore  the  scandal  he  had  spread.  "  But," 
as  Jerome  says,  "  a  lie  is  hard  to  kill ;  the  world  loves  to  be- 
lieve an  evil  story :  it  puts  its  faith  in  the  lie,  but  not  in  the 
recantation."  And  the  situation  of  affairs  became  such  that 
he  too  saw  no  expedient  possible  but  that  of  leaving  Rome. 
He  would  seem  to  have  been,  or  to  have  imagined  himself, 
in  danger  of  his  life,  and  his  presence  was  unquestionably  a 
danger  for  his  friends.  A  man  of  more  patient  tempera- 
ment and  quiet  mind  might  have  thought  that  Paula's 
resolution  to  go  away  was  a  reason  for  him  to  stay,  and 
thus  to  bear  the  scandal  and  outrage  alone,  at  least 
until  she  was  safe  out  of  its  reach  —  giving  no  possible 
occasion  for  the  adversary  to  blaspheme.  But  Jerome  was 
evidently  not  disposed  to  any  such  self-abnegation,  and 
indeed  it  is  very  likely  that  his  position  had  become  intoler- 
able and  that  his  only  resource  was  departure.  It  was  in 
the  summer  of  385,  nearly  three  years  after  his  arrival 
in  Eome  —  in  August,  seven  months  after  the  death  of 
Damasus,  and  not  a  year  after  that  of  Blsesilla,  that  he 


72  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

left  "  Babylon,"  as  he  called  the  tumultuous  city,  writing 
his  farewell  with  tears  of  grief  and  wrath  to  the  Lady 
Asella,  now  one  of  the  eldest  and  most  important  members 
of  the  community,  and  thanking  God  that  he  was  found 
worthy  of  the  hatred  of  the  world.  We  are  apt  to  speak  as 
if  travelling  were  an  invention  of  our  time :  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  facilities  of  travelling  then  existed  little  inferior  to 
those  we  ourselves  possessed  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  and 
it  was  no  strange  or  unusual  journey  from.  Ostia  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber,  by  the  soft  Mediterranean  shores,  past 
the  vexed  rocks  of  the  Sirens  in  the  blazing  weather,  to 
Cyprus  that  island  of  monasteries,  and  Antioch  a  vexed  and 
heresy-tainted  city  yet  full  of  friends  and  succour.  Jerome 
had  a  cluster  of  faithful  followers  round  him,  and  was 
escorted  by  a  weeping  crowd  to  the  very  point  of  his 
embarkation:  but  yet  swept  forth  from  Rome  in  a  passion 
of  indignation  and  distress. 

It  was  while  waiting  for  the  moment  of  departure  in  the 
ship  that  was  to  carry  him  far  from  his  friends  and  the  life 
he  loved,  that  Jerome's  letters  to  Asella  were  written.  They 
were  full  of  anger  and  sorrow,  the  utterance  of  a  heart  sore 
and  wounded,  of  a  man  driven  almost  to  despair.  "  I  am 
said,"  he  cries,  "  to  be  an  infamous  person,  a  deceiver  full 
of  guile,  an  impostor  with  all  the  arts  of  Satan  at  his  fingers' 
ends.  .  .  .  These  men  have  kissed  my  hands  in  public,  and 
stung  me  in  secret  with  a  viper's  tooth ;  they  compassionate 
me  with  their  lips  and  rejoice  in  their  hearts.  But  the 
Lord  saw  them,  and  had  them  in  derision,  reserving  them 
to  appear  with  me,  his  unfortunate  servant,  at  the  last 
judgment.  One  of  them  ridicules  my  walk,  and  my  laugh : 
another  makes  of  my  features  a  subject  of  accusation:  to 
another  the  simplicity  of  my  manners  is  the  evil  thing:  and 
I  have  lived  three  years  in  the  company  of  such  men ! "  He 
continues  his  indignant  self-defence  as  follows : 

"  I  have  lived  surrounded  by  virgins,  and  to  some  of  them 


v.J  PAULA.  75 

I  explained  as  best  I  could  the  divine  books.  With  study 
came  an  increased  knowledge  of  each  other,  and  with  that 
knowledge  mutual  confidence.  Let  them  say  if  they  have 
ever  found  anything  in  my  conduct  unbecoming  a  "Christian. 
Have  I  not  refused  all  presents,  great  or  small  ?  Gold  has 
never  sounded  in  my  palm.  Have  they  heard  from  my  lips- 
any  doubtful  word,  or  seen  in  my  eyes  a  bold  or  hazardous 
look  ?  Never,  and  no  one  dares  say  so.  The  only  objection 
to  me  is  that  I  am  a  man :  and  that  objection  only  appeared 
when  Paula  announced  her  intention  of  going  to  Jerusalem. 
They  believed  my  accuser  when  he  lied :  why  do  they  not 
believe  him  when  he  retracts  ?  He  is  the  same  man  now  as 
then.  He  imputed  false  crimes  to  me,  now  he  declares  me 
innocent.  What  a  man  confesses  under  torture  is  more 
likely  to  be  true  than  that  which  he  gives  forth  in  a  moment 
of  gaiety :  but  people  are  more  prone  to  believe  such  a  lie 
than  the  truth. 

"  Of  all  the  ladies  in  Eome  Paula  only,  in  her  mourning 
and  fasting,  has  touched  my  heart.  Her  songs  were  psalms, 
her  conversations  were  of  the  Gospel,  her  delight  was  in 
purity,  her  life  a  long  fast.  Tut  when  I  began  to  revere, 
respect,  and  venerate  her,  as  her  conspicuous  virtue  deserved, 
all  my  good  qualities  forsook  me  on  the  spot. 

"  Had  Paula  and  Melania  rushed  to  the  baths,  taken  ad- 
vantage of  their  wealth  and  position  to  join,  perfumed  and 
adorned,  in  one  worship  God  and  their  wealth,  their  free- 
dom and  pleasure,  they  would  have  been  known  as  great 
and  saintly  ladies ;  but  now  it  is  said  they  seek  to  be  ad- 
mired in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  and  go  down  to  hell  laden 
with  fasting  and  mortifications  :  as  if  they  could  not  as  well 
have  been  damned  along  with  the  rest,  amid  the  applauses 
of  the  crowd.  If  it  were  Pagans  and  Jews  who  condemned 
them,  they  would  have  had  the  consolation  of  being  hated 
by  those  who  hated  Christ,  but  these  are  Christians,  or  men 
known  by  that  name. 


76 


THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 


"  Lady  Asella,  I  write  these  lines  in  haste,  while  the  ship 
spreads  its  sails.  I  write  them  with  sobs  and  tears,  yet 
giving  thanks  to  God  to  have  been  found  worthy  of  the 
hatred  of  the  world.  Salute  Paula  and  Eustochium,  mine 
in  Christ  whether  the  world  pleases  or  not,  salute  Albina 
your  mother,  Marcella  your  sister,  Marcellina,  Felicita :  say 
to  them  that  we  shall  meet  again  before  the  judgment  seat 


TRINITA  DE'   MONTI. 

of  God,  where"  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be  revealed. 
Remember  me,  oh  example  of  purity  !  and  may  thy  prayers 
tranquillise  before  me  the  tumults  of  the  sea !  " 

The  agitation  with  which  the  community  of  ladies  must 
have  received  such  a  letter  may  easily  be  imagined.  They 
were  better  able  than  any  others  to  judge  of  the  probity  and 
honour  of  the  writer  who  had  lived  among  them  so  long : 
and  no  doubt  all  these  storms  raging  about,  the  injurious 
and  insulting  imputations,  all  the  evil  tongues  of  Kome  let 
loose  upon  the  harmless  house,  their  privacy  invaded,  their 


v.]  PAULA.  77 

quiet  disturbed,  must,  during  the  whole  course  of  the  deplor- 
able incident,  have  been  the  cause  of  pain  and  trouble  un- 
speakable to  the  gentle  society  on  the  Aventine.  Marcella 
it  is  evident  had  done  what  she  could  to  stop  the  mouth  of 
Jerome  when  the  trouble  began ;  it  is  perhaps  for  this  reason 
that  the  letter  of  farewell  is  addressed  to  the  older  Asella, 
perhaps  a  milder  judge. 

Paula's  preparations  had  begun  before  Jerome  had  as  yet 
thought  of  his  more  abrupt  departure.  They  were  not  so 
easily  made  as  those  of  a  solitary  already  detached  from  the 
world.  She  had  all  her  family  affairs  to  regulate,  and,  what 
was  harder  still,  her  children  to  part  with,  the  most  difficult 
of  all,  and  the  special  point  in  her  conduct  with  which  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  sympathise.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Paula,  a  spotless  matron,  had  been  branded  with 
the  most  shameful  of  slanders,  that  she  had  been  shrieked  at 
by  the  crowd  as  the  slayer  of  her  daughter,  and  accused  by 
society  of  having  dishonoured  her  name.  She  had  been  the 
subject  of  a  case  of  libel,  as  we  should  say,  before  the  public 
courts,  and  though  the  slanderer  had  confessed  his  falsehood 
(under  the  influence  of  torture  it  would  seem,  according  to 
the  words  of  Jerome),  the  imputation,  as  in  most  cases,  re- 
mained. Outraged  and  wounded  to  the  quick,  it  is  very 
possible  that  she  may  have  thought  that  it  was  well  for  her 
younger  children  that  she  should  leave  them,  that  they 
might  not  remain  under  the  wing  of  a  mother  whose  name 
had  been  bandied  about  in  the  mouths  of  men.  Her 
daughter  Paulina  was  by  this  time  married  to  the  good  and 
faithful  Pammachius,  whose  protection  might  be  of  greater 
advantage  to  the  younger  girl  and  boy  than  her  own.  And 
Paula  had  full  knowledge  of  the  tender  mercies  of  her  pagan 
relations,  and  of  the  influence  they  were  likely  to  exercise 
against  her,  even  in  her  own  house.  The  staid  young 
Eustochium,  grave  and  calm,  clung  to  her  mother's  side,  her 
youthful  head  already  covered  by  the  veil  of  the  dedicated 


78  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

virgin,  a  serene  and  unfaltering  figure  in  the  midst  of  all 
the  agitations  of  the  parting.  All  Rome  poured  forth  to 
accompany  them  to  the  port,  brothers  and  sisters  with  their 
wives  and  husbands,  relations  less  near,  a  crowd  of  friends. 
All  the  way  along  the  winding  banks  of  the  Tiber  they  plied 
Paula  with  entreaties  and  reproaches  and  tears.  She  made 
them  no  reply.  She  was  at  all  times  slow  to  speak,  as  the 
tender  chronicle  reports.  "  She  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven, 
pious  towards  her  children  but  more  pious  to  God."  She  re- 
tained her  self-command  until  the  vessel  began  to  move  from 
the  shore,  where  little  Toxotius,  the  boy  of  ten  years  old, 
stood  stretching  out  his  hands  to  her  in  a  last  appeal,  his 
sister  Eufina  silent,  with  wistful  eyes,  by  his  side.  Paula's 
heart  was  like  to  burst.  She  turned  her  eyes  away  unable 
to  bear  that  cruel  sight,  while  Eustochium,  firm  and  stead- 
fast, supported  her  weaker  mother  in  her  arms. 

Was  it  a  cruel  desertion,  a  heartless  abandonment  of  duty? 
Who  can  tell  ?  There  are  desertions,  cruelties  in  this  kind, 
which  are  the  highest  sacrifice,  and  sometimes  the  most  bit- 
ter proof  of  self-devotion.  Did  Paula  in  her  heart  believe, 
most  painful  thought  that  can  enter  a  mother's  mind,  that 
her  boy  would  be  better  without  her,  brought  up  in  peace 
among  his  uncles  and  guardians,  who,  had  she  been  there, 
would  have  made  his  life  a  continual  struggle  between  two 
sides  ?  Was  Eufina  more  likely  to  be  happy  in  her  gentle 
sister's  charge,  than  with  her  mind  disturbed,  and  perhaps 
her  marriage  spoiled,  by  her  mother's  religious  vows,  and 
all  that  was  involved  in  them?  She  might  be  wrong  in 
thinking  so,  as  we  are  all  wrong  often  in  our  best  and  most 
painfully  pondered  plans.  But  condemnation  is  very  easy, 
and  gives  so  little  trouble  —  there  is  surely  a  word  to  be 
said  on  the  other  side  of  the  question. 

When  these  pilgrims  leave  Eome  they  cease  to  have  any 
part  in  the  story  of  the  great  city  with  which  we  have  to 
do.  Yet  their  after-fate  may  be  stated  in  a  few  words.  No 


v.]  PAULA.  79 

need  to  follow  the  great  lady  in  her  journey  over  land  and 
sea  to  the  Holy  Land  with  all  its  associations,  where  Jeru- 
salem out  of  her  ruins,  decked  with  a  new  classic  name,  was 
already  rising  again  into  the  knowledge  and  the  veneration 
of  the  world.  These  were  not  the  days  of  excursion  trains 
and  steamers,  it  is  true;  but  the  number  of  pilgrims  ever 
coming  and  going  to  those  more  than  classic  shores,  those 
holy  places,  animated  with  every  higher  hope,  was  perhaps 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  smaller  size  and  less  popula- 
tion of  the  known 'world  than  are  our  many  pilgrimages 
now,  though  this  seems  so  strange  a  thing  to  say.  But  is 
there  not  a  Murray,  a  Baedeker,  of  the  fourth  century,  still 
existent,  the  Itineraire  de  Bordeaux  d  Jerusalem,  unques- 
tioned and  authentic,  containing  the  most  careful  account 
of  inns  and  places  of  refuge  and  modes  of  travel  for  the 
pilgrims?  It  is  possible  that  the  lady  Paula  may  have 
had  that  ancient  roll  in  her  satchel,  or  slung  about  the 
shoulders  of  her  attendant  for  constant  reference.  Her 
ship  was  occupied  by  her  own  party  alone,  and  conveyed, 
no  doubt,  much  baggage  and  many  provisions  as  an  emi- 
gration for  life  would  naturally  do;  and  it  was  hindered 
by  no  storms,  as  far  as  we  hear,  but  only  by  a  great  calm 
which  delayed  the  vessel  much  and  made  the  voyage  te- 
dious, necessitating  the  use  of  the  galley's  oars,  which  very 
likely  the  ladies  would  like  best,  though  it  kept  them  so 
many  more  days  upon  the  sea.  They  reached  Cyprus  at 
last,  that  holy  island  now  covered  with  monasteries,  where 
Epiphanius,  once  Paula's  guest  in  Borne,  awaited  and  re- 
ceived her  with  every  honour,  and  where  there  were  many 
visits  to  be  paid  to  monks  and  nuns  in  their  new  establish- 
ments, the  favourite  dissipation  of  the  cloister.  The  ladies 
afterwards  continued  their  voyage  to  Antioch,  where  they 
met  Jerome;  and  proceeded  on  their  journey,  having  proba- 
bly had  enough  of  the  sea,  along  the  coast  by  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  by  Herod's  splendid  city  of  Csesarea,  and  Joppa 


80  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

with  its  memories  of  the  Apostles  —  not  without  a  thought 
of  Andromeda  and  her  monster  as  they  looked  over  the 
dark  and  dangerous  reefs  which  still  scare  the  traveller: 
for  they  loved  literature,  notwithstanding  their  separation 
from  the  world.  They  formed  by  this  time  a  great  cara- 
vanserai, not  unlike,  to  tell  the  truth,  one  of  those  parties 
which  we  are  so  apt  to  despise,  under  charge  of  guides  and 
attendants  who  wear  the  livery  of  Cook.  But  such  an  expe- 
dition was  far  more  dignified  and  important  in  those  dis- 
tant days.  Jerome  and  his  monks  made  but  one  family  of 
sisters  and  brothers  with  the  Roman  ladies  and  their  fol- 
lowers, who  endured  so  bravely  all  the  fatigues  and  dangers 
of  the  way.  Paula  the  pilgrim  was  no  longer  a  tottering 
fine  lady,  but  the  most  animated  and  interested  of  travel- 
lers, with  no  mere  mission  of  hermit-hunting  like  Melania, 
but  the  truest  human  enthusiasm  for  all  the-  storied  scenes 
through  which  she  passed.  When  they  reached  Jerusalem 
she  went  in  a  rapture  of  tears  and  exaltation  from  one  to 
another  of  the  sacred  sites,  kissing  the  broken  stone  which 
was  supposed  to  have  been  that  which  was  rolled  against 
the  door  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  following  with  pious 
awe  and  joy  the  steps  of  Helena  into  the  cave  where  the 
True  Cross  was  found.  The  legend  was  still  fresh  in  those 
days,  and  doubts  there  were  none.  The  enthusiasm  of  Paula, 
the  rapture  and  exaltation,  which  found  vent  in  torrents  of 
tears,  in  ecstasies  of  sacred  emotion,  joy  and  prayer,  moved 
all  the  city,  thronged  with  pilgrims,  devout  and  otherwise, 
to  whom  the  great  Roman  lady  was  a  wonder:  the  crowd 
followed  her  about  from  point  to  point,  marvelling  at  her 
devotion  and  the  warmth  of  natural  feeling  which  in  all 
circumstances  distinguished  her.  The  reader  cannot  but 
follow  still  with  admiring  interest  a  figure  so  fresh,  so 
unconventional,  so  profoundly  touched  by  all  those  holy 
and  sacred  associations.  Amid  so  many  who  are  repre- 
sented as  almost  more  abstracted  among  spiritual  thoughts 


v.]  PAULA.  81 

than  nature  permits,  her  frank  emotion  and  tender,  natural 
enthusiasm  are  always  a  refreshment  and  a  charm. 

We  come  here  upon  a  break  in  the  hitherto  redundant 
story.  Melania  and  Rufinus  were  in  possession  of  their  con- 
vents, and  fully  established  as  residents  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  when  the  other  pilgrims  arrived ;  and  there  can  be 
but  little  doubt  that  every  grace  of  hospitality  was  extended 
by  the  one  Roman  lady  to  the  other,  as  well  as  by  the  old 
companions  of  Jerome  to  her  friend.  But  in  the  course  of 
the  after-years  these  dear  friends  quarrelled  bitterly,  not  on 
personal  matters,  so  far  as  appears,  but  on  points  of  doctrine, 
and  fell  into  such  prolonged  warfare  of  angry  and  stinging 
words  as  hurt  more  than  blows.  By  means  of  this  very 
intimacy  they  knew  everything  that  had  ever  been  said  or 
whispered  of  each  other,  and  in  the  heat  of  conflict  did  not 
hesitate  to  use  every  old  insinuation,  every  suggestion  that 
could  hurt  or  wound.  The  struggle  ran  so  high  that  the 
after-peace  of  both  parties  was  seriously  affected  by  it ;  and 
one  of  its  most  significant  results  was  that  Jerome,  a  man 
great  enough  and  little  enough  for  anything,  either  in  the 
way  of  spitefulness  or  magnanimity,  cut  off  from  his  letters 
and  annals  all  mention  of  this  early  period  of  peace,  and  all 
reference  to  Melania,  whom  he  is  supposed  to  have  praised 
so  highly  in  his  first  state  of  mind  that  it  became  impossible 
in  his  second  to  permit  these  expressions  of  amity  to  be  con- 
nected with  her  name.  This  is  a  melancholy  explanation 
of  the  silence  which  falls  over  the  first  period  of  Paula's 
residence  in  Palestine,  but  it  is  a  very  natural  one:  and 
both  sides  were  equally  guilty.  The  quarrel  happened, 
however,  years  after  the  first  visit,  which  we  have  every 
reason  to  believe  was  all  friendliness  and  peace. 

After  this  first  pause  at  Jerusalem,  the  caravanserai  got 
under  way  again  and  set  out  on  a  long  journey  through  all 
the  scenes  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  storied  deserts  and 
ruins  of  Syria,  not  much  less  ancient  to  the  view  and  much 

G 


82  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

less  articulate  than  now.  This  was  in  the  year  387,  two 
years  after  their  departure  from  Rome.  Even  now,  with  all 
our  increased  facilities  for  travel  —  neutralised  as  they  are 
by  the  fact  that  these  wild  and  desert  lands  will  probably 
never  be  adapted  to  modern  methods  —  the  journey  would  be 
a  very  long  and  fatiguing  business.  Jerome  and  his  party 
"  went  everywhere,"  as  we  should  say ;  they  were  daunted 
by  no  difficulties.  No  modern  lady  in  deer-stalker's  costume 
could  have  shrunk  less  from  any  dangerous  road  than  the 
once  fastidious  Paula.  They  stopped  everywhere,  receiv- 
ing the  ready  hospitality  of  the  convents  in  every  awful 
pass  of  the  rocks  and  stony  waste  where  such  homes  of  pen- 
ance were  planted.  Those  wildernesses  of  ruin,  from  which 
our  own  explorers  have  picked  carefully  out  some  tradition 
of  Gilgal  or  of  Ziklag,  some  Philistine  stronghold  or  Jew- 
ish city  of  refuge  —  were  surveyed  by  these  adventurers 
fourteen  hundred  years  ago,  when  perhaps  there  was  greater 
freshness  of  tradition,  but  none  of  the  aids  of  science  to  de- 
cipher what  would  seem  even  more  hoary  with  age  to  them 
than  it  does  to  us.  How  trifling  in  our  pretences  at  explora- 
tion do  the  luxurious  parties  of  the  nineteenth  century  seem, 
abstracted  from  common  life  for  a  few  months  at  the  most, 
and  with  all  the  resources  of  civilisation  to  fall  back  upon, 
in  comparison  with  that  of  these  patient  wanderers,  eating 
the  Arab  bread  and  clotted  milk,  and  such  fare  as  was  to  be 
got  at,  finding  shelter  among  the  dark-skinned  ascetics  of 
the  desert  communities,  taking  refuge  in  the  cave  which 
some  saint  but  a  day  or  two  before  had  inhabited,  wander- 
ing everywhere,  over  primeval  ruin  and  recent  shrine ! 

When  they  came  back  from  these  savage  wildernesses  to 
green  Bethlehem  standing  up  on  its  hillside  over  the  pleas- 
ant fields,  the  calm  and  sweetness  of  the  place  went  to 
their  hearts.  It  was  in  this  sacred  spot  that  they  decided 
to  settle  themselves,  building  their  two  convents,  Jerome's 
upon  the  hill  near  the  western  gate,  Paula's  upon  the  srnil- 


v.]  PAULA.  83 

ing  level  below.  He  is  said  to  have  sold  all  that  he  had, 
some  remains  of  personal  property  in  Dalmatia  belonging 
to  himself  and  his  brother,  who  was  his  faithful  and  con- 
stant companion,  to  provide  for  the  expenses  of  the  build'ing, 
on  his  side ;  and  no  doubt  the  abundant  wealth  of  Paula  sup- 
plemented all  that  was  wanting.  Gradually  a  conventual 
settlement,  such  as  was  the  ideal  of  the  time,  gathered  in 
this  spot.  After  her  own  convent  was  finished  Paula  built 
two  others  near  it,  which  were  soon  filled  with  dedicated 
sisters.  And  she  built  a  hospice  for  the  reception  of  trav- 
ellers, so  that,  as  she  said  with  tender  smiles  and  tears, 
"If  Joseph  and  Mary  should  return  to  Bethlehem,  they 
might  be  sure  of  finding  room  for  them  in  the  inn."  This 
soft  speech  shines  like  a  gleam  of  tender  light  upon  the 
little  holy  city  with  all  its  memories,  showing  us  the  great 
lady  of  old  in  her  gracious  kindness,  full  of  noble  natural 
kindness,  and  seeing  in  every  poor  pilgrim  who  passed 
that  way  some  semblance  of  that  simple  pair,  who  carried 
the  Light  of  the  World  to  David's  little  town  among  the 
hills. 

All  these  homes  of  piety  and  charity  are  swept  away, 
and  no  tradition  even  of  their  site  is  left;  but  there  is  one 
storied  chamber  that  remains  full  of  the  warmest  interest 
of  all.  It  is  the  rocky  room,  in  one  of  the  half  caves,  half 
excavations  close  to  that  of  the  Nativity,  and  communicat- 
ing with  it  by  rudely  hewn  stairs  and  passages,  in  which 
Jerome  established  himself  while  his  convent  was  building, 
which  he  called  his  Paradise,  and  which  is  for  ever  associ- 
ated with  the  great  work  completed  there.  All  other  tra- 
ditions and  memories  grow  dim  in  the  presence  of  the  great 
and  sacred  interest  of  the  place.  Yet  it  will  be  impossible 
even  there  for  the  spectator  who  knows  their  story  to  stand 
unmoved  in  the  scene,  practically  unaltered  since  their  day, 
where  Jerome  laboured  at  his  great  translation,  and  Paula 
and  Eustochium  copied,  compared,  and  criticised  his  daily 


84  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

labours.  A  great  part  of  the  Vulgate  had  been  completed 
in  Rome,  but  since  leaving  that  city  Jerome  had  much 
increased  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  losing  no  opportunity, 
during  his  travels,  of  studying  the  language  with  every 
learned  Rabbi  he  encountered,  and  acquiring  much  infor- 
mation in  respect  to  the  views  and  readings  of  the  doctors 
in  the  law.  He  took  the  opportunity  of  his  retirement  at 
Bethlehem  to  revise  what  was  already  done  and  to  finish 
the  work.  His  two  friends  had  both  learned  Hebrew  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  before  leaving  Rome.  They  had  no 
doubt  shared  his  studies  on  the  way.  They  read  with  him 
daily  a  portion  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  original ;  and  it  was 
at  their  entreaty  and  with  their  help  that  he  began  the 
translation  of  the  Psalms,  so  deeply  appropriate  to  this 
scene,  in  which  the  voice  of  the  shepherd  of  Bethlehem 
could  almost  be  heard,  singing  as  he  led  his  flock  about  the 
little  hills.  I  quote  from  M.  Amedee  Thierry  a  sympa- 
thetic description  of  the  method  of  this  work  as  it  was 
carried  out  in  the  rocky  chamber  at  Bethlehem,  or  in  the 
convent  close  by. 

His  two  friends  charged  themselves  with  the  task  of  collecting  all 
the  materials,  and  this  edition,  prepared  by  their  care,  is  that  which 
remains  in  the  Church  under  Jerome's  name.  We  have  his  own  in- 
structions to  them  for  this  work,  even  to  the  lines  traced  for  greater 
exactness,  and  the  explanation  of  the  signs  which  he  had  adopted  in 
the  collation  of  the  different  versions  with  his  text,  sometimes  a  line 
underscored,  sometimes  an  obelisk  or  asterisk.  A  comma  followed 
by  two  points  indicated  the  cutting  out  of  superfluous  words  coming 
from  some  paraphrase  of  the  Septuagint ;  a  star  followed  by  two  points 
showed,  on  the  contrary,  where  passages  had  to  be  inserted  from  the 
Hebrew ;  another  mark  denoted  passages  borrowed  from  the  transla- 
tion of  Theodosius,  slightly  different  from  the  Septuagint  as  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  language.  In  reading  these  various  symbols  it  is 
pleasant  to  think  of  the  two  noble  Roman  ladies  seated  before  the  vast 
desk  upon  which  were  spread  the  numerous  manuscripts,  Greek,  He- 
brew, and  Latin  —  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Bible,  the  different  editions 
of  the  Septuagint,  the  Hexapla  of  Origen,  Theodosius,  Symmachus, 
Aquila,  and  the  Italian  Vulgate  —  whilst  they  examined  and  compared, 
reducing  to  order  under  their  hands,  with  piety  and  joy,  that  Psalter 
of  St.  Jerome  which  we  still  sing,  at  least  the  greater  part  of  it,  in  the 
Latin  Church  at  the  present  day. 


v.]  PAULA.  85 

It  is  indeed  a  touching  association  with  that  portion  of 
Scripture  which  next  to  the  Gospel  is  most  dear  to  the 
devout,  that  the  translation  still  in  daily  use  throughout 
the  churches  of  Continental  Europe,  the  sonorous  and  noble 
words  which  amid  all  the  babble  of  different  tongues  still 
form  a  large  universal  language,  of  which  all  have  at  least 
a  conventional  understanding  —  should  have  been  thus 
transcribed  and  perfected  for  the  use  of  the  generations. 
Jerome  is  no  gentle  hero,  and,  truth  to  tell,  has  never  been 
much  loved  in  the  Church  which  yet  owes  so  much  to  him. 
Yet  there  is  no  other  work  of  the  kind  which  carries  with 
it  so  many  soft  and  tender  associations.  The  cave  at  Beth- 
lehem is  as  little  adapted  as  a  scene  for  fchat  domestic  com- 
bination as  Jerome  is  naturally  adapted  to  be  its  centre. 
And  no  doubt  there  are  unkindly  critics  who  will  describe 
this  austere  yet  beautiful  interior  as  the  workshop  of  two 
poor  female  slaves  dragged  after  him  by  the  tyranny  of 
their  grim  taskmaster  to  do  his  work  for  him.  No  such 
idea  is  consistent  with  the  record.  The  gentle  Paula  wa$ 
a  woman  of  high  spirit  as  well  as  of  much  grace  and  cour- 
tesy, steadfastness  and  humour,  the  last  the  most  unusual 
quality  of  all.  The  imaginative  devotion  which  had  in- 
duced her  to  learn  Hebrew  in  order  to  sing  the  Psalmist's 
songs  in  the  original,  among  the  little  band  of  Souls,  under 
Marcella's  gilded  roof,  had  its  natural  evolution  in  the 
gentle  pressure  laid  upon  Jerome  to  make  of  them  an 
authoritative  translation :  and  where  could  so  fit  a  place  for 
this  work  have  been  found  as  in  the  delightful  rest  after 
their  travels  were  over,  in  the  very  scene  where  these 
sacred  songs  were  first  begun?  It  would  be  almost  as 
impertinent  and  foolish  to  suppose  that  any  modern  doubt 
of  their  authenticity  existed  in  Paula's  mind  as  to  suggest 
that  these  were  forced  and  dreary  labours  to  which  she  was 
driven  by  a  spiritual  tyrant.  To  our  mind  this  mutual 
labour  and  study  adds  the  last  charm  to  their  companion- 


86  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ship.  The  sprightly,  gentle  woman  who  shed  so  much 
light  over  that  curious  self-denying  yet  self-indulgent  life, 
and  the  grave  young  daughter  who  never  left  her  side, 
whose  gentle  shadow  is  one  with  her,  so  that  while  Paula 
lived  we  cannot  distinguish  them  apart  —  must  have  found 
a  quiet  happiness  above  all  they  had  calculated  on  in  this 
delightful  intercourse  and  work.  Their  minds  and  thoughts 
occupied  by  the  charm  of  noble  poetry,  by  the  puzzle  of 
words  to  be  cleared  and  combined  aright,  and  by  constant 
employment  in  a  matter  which  interested  them  so  deeply, 
which  is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  —  must  have  drawn  closer 
and  ever  closer,  mother  to  child,  and  child  to  mother,  as 
well  as  both  to  the  -friend  and  father  whom  they  delighted 
to  serve,  and  whose  large  intellect  and  knowledge  kept 
theirs  going  in  constant  sympathy  —  not  unmingled  with 
now  and  then  a  little  opposition,  and  the  pleasant  stir  of 
independent  opinion. 

It  is  right  to  give  Jerome  himself,  so  fierce  in  quarrel 
a,nd  controversy,  the  advantage  of  this  gentle  lamp  which 
burns  for  ever  in  his  little  Paradise.  And  can  any  one 
suppose  that  Paula,  once  so  sensitive  and  exquisite,  now 
strong  and  vigorous  in  the  simplicity  of  that  retirement, 
with  her  hands  full  and  her  mind,  plenty  to  think  of,  plenty 
to  do,  had  not  her  advantage  also  ?  The  life  would  be  ideal 
but  for  the  thought  that  must  have  come  over  her  by  times, 
of  the  young  ones  left  in  Eome,  and  what  was  happening  to 
them.  She  was  indeed  prostrated  by  grief  again  and  again 
by  the  death  of  her  daughters  there,  one  after  another,  and 
mourned  with  a  bitterness  which  makes  us  wonder  whether 
that  haunting  doubt  and  self-censure,  which  perhaps  gave 
an  additional  sting  to  her  sorrow  in  the  case  of  Blsesilla, 
may  not  have  overwhelmed  her  heart  again  though  on  a 
contrary  ground  —  the  doubt  whether  perhaps  the  austerities 
she  enjoined  and  shared  had  been  fatal  to  one,  the  contra- 
dictory doubt  whether  to  leave  them  to  the  usual  course  of 


PAULA. 


87 


life  might  not  have  been  fatal  to  the  others.  Such  a  woman 
has  none  of  the  self-confidence  which  steels  so  many  against 
fate  —  and,  finding  nothing  effectual  for  the  safety  of  those 
she  loved,  neither  a  sacred  dedication  nor  that  consent  to 
commonplace  happiness  which  is  the  ordinary  ideal  of  a 
mother's  duty,  might  well  sometimes  fall  into  despair  —  a 
despair  silently  shared  by  many  a  trembling  heart  in  all 


FROM  THE  AVENTINE. 


ages,  which  finds  its  best-laid  plans,  though  opposite  to  each 
other,  fall  equally  into  downfall  and  dismay. 

But  she  had  her  compensations.  She  had  her  little  glory, 
too,  in  the  books  which  went  forth  from  that  seclusion  in 
Bethlehem,  bearing  her  name,  inscribed  to  her  and  her  child 
by  the  greatest  writer  of  the  time.  "  You,  Paula  and  Eu- 
stochium,  who  have  studied  so  deeply  the  books  of  the 
Hebrews,  take  it,  this  book  of  Esther,  and  test  it  word  by 
word;  you  can  tell  whether  anything  is  added,  anything 


88       THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME,    [CH.  v. 

withdrawn :  and  can  bear  faithful  witness  whether  I  have 
rendered  aright  in  Latin  this  Hebrew  history."  Few 
women  would  despise  such  a  tribute,  and  fewer  still  the 
place  of  these  two  women  in  the  Paradise  of  that  laborious 
study,  and  at  the  doors  of  that  beautiful  Hospice  on  the 
Jerusalem  road,  where  Joseph  and  Mary  had  they  but  come 
again  would  have  run  no  risk  of  finding  room! 

They  died  all  three,  one  after  another,  and  were  laid  to 
rest  in  the  pure  and  wholesome  rock  near  the  sacred  spot  of 
the  Nativity.  There  is  a  touching  story  told  of  how  Eu- 
stochium,  after  her  mother's  death,  when  Jerome  was  over- 
whelmed with  grief  and  unable  to  return  to  any  of  his 
former  occupations,  came  to  him  with  the  book  of  Ruth  still 
untranslated  in  her  hand,  at  once  a  promise  and  an  entreaty. 
"  Where  thou  goest  I  will  go.  Where  thou  dwellest  I  will 
dwell "  —  and  a  continuation  at  the  same  time  of  the  blessed 
work  which  kept  their  souls  alive. 


THE  CAPITOL  FROM  THE  PALATINE, 


CHAPTER   VI. 


THE    MOTHER    HOUSE. 

AMID  all  these  changes  the  house  on  the  Aventine  —  the 
mother  house  as  it  would  be  called  in  modern  parlance 
—  went  on  in  busy  quiet,  no  longer  visible  in  that  fierce  light 
which  beats  upon  the  path  of  such  a  man  as  Jerome,  doing 
its  quiet  work  steadily,  having  a  hand  in  many  things,  most 
of  them  beneficent,  which  went  on  in  Rome.  Albina  the 
mother  of  Marcella,  and  Asella  her  elder  sister,  died  in 
peace :  and  younger  souls,  with  more  stirring  episodes  of 
life,  disturbed  and  enlivened  the  peace  of  the  cloister,  which 
yet  was  no  cloister  but  open  to  all  the  influences  of  life, 
maintaining  a  large  correspondence  and  much  and  varied 
intercourse  with  the  society  of  the  times.  In  the  first  fer- 
vour of  the  settlement  in  Bethlehem  both  Paula  and  Jerome 

89 


90  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

(she  by  his  hand)  wrote  to  Marcella  urging  her  to  join  them, 
to  forsake  the  world  in  a  manner  more  complete  than  she 
had  yet  done.  "...  You  were  the  first  to  kindle  the 
fire  in  us  "  (the  letter  is  nominally  from  Paula  and  Eusto- 
chium) :  "  the  first  by  precept  and  example  to  urge  us  to 
adopt  our  present  life.  As  a  hen  gathers  her  chickens,  who 
fear  the  hawk  and  tremble  at  every  shadow  of  a  bird,  so 
did  you  take  us  under  your  wing.  And  will  you  now  let  us 
fly  about  at  random  with  no  mother  near  us?" 

This  letter  is  full  not  only  of  affectionate  entreaties  but 
of  delightful  pictures  of  their  own  retired  and  peaceful 
life.  "How  shall  I  describe  to  you,"  the  writer  says,  "the 
little  cave  of  Christ,  the  hostel  of  Mary  ?  Silence  is  more 
respectful  than  words,  which  are  inadequate  to  speak  its 
praise.  There  are  no  lines  of  noble  colonnades,  no  walls 
decorated  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  and  the  labour  of  con- 
victs, no  gilded  roofs  to  intercept  the  sky.  Behold  in  this 
poor  crevice  of  the  earth,  in  a  fissure  of  the  rock,  the  builder 
of  the  firmament  was  born."  She  goes  on  with  touching 
eloquence  to  put  forth  every  argument  to  move  her  friend. 

Read  the  Apocalypse  of  St.  John  and  see  there  what  he  says  of  the 
woman  clothed  in  scarlet,  on  whose  forehead  is  written  blasphemy, 
and  of  her  seven  hills,  and  many  waters,  and  the  end  of  Babylon. 
"Come  out  of  her,  my  people,"  the  Lord  says,  "that  ye  be  not  par- 
takers of  her  sins.!'  There  is  indeed  there  a  holy  Church;  there  are 
the  trophies  of  apostles  and  martyrs,  the  true  confession  of  Christ,  the 
faith  preached  by  the  apostles,  and  heathendom  trampled  under  foot, 
and  the  name  of  Christian  every  day  raising  itself  on  high.  But  its 
ambition,  its  power,  the  greatness  of  the  city,  the  need  of  seeing  and 
being  seen,  of  greeting  and  being  greeted,  of  praising  and  detracting, 
hearing  or  talking,  of  seeing,  even  against  one's  will,  all  the  crowds  of 
the  world  —  these  things  are  alien  to  the  monastic  profession  and  they 
have  spoiled  Rome,  they  all  oppose  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the 
quiet  of  the  true  monk.  People  visit  you:  if  you  open  your  doors, 
farewell  to  silence :  if  you  close  them,  you  are  proud  and  unfriendly- 
If  you  return  their  politeness,  it  is  through  proud  portals,  through  a 
host  of  grumbling  insolent  lackeys.  But  in  the  cottage  of  Christ  all  is 
simple,  all  is  rustic :  except  the  Psalms,  all  is  silence :  no  frivolous 
talk  disturbs  you,  the  ploughman  sings  Allelujah  as  he  follows  his 
plough,  the  reaper  covered  with  sweat  refreshes  himself  with  chanting 
a  psalm,  and  it  is  David  who  supplies  with  a  song  the  vine  dresser 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  91 

among  his  vineyards.  These  are  the  songs  of  the  country,  its  ditties 
of  love,  played  upon  the  shepherd's  flute.  Will  the  time  never  come 
when  a  breathless  courier  will  bring  us  the  good  news,  your  Marcella 
has  landed  in  Palestine  ?  What  a  cry  of  joy  among  the  choirs  of  the 
monks,  among  all  the  bands  of  the  virgins  !  In  our  excitement  we  wait 
for  no  carriage  but  go  on  foot  to  meet  you,  to  clasp  your  hand,  to  look 
upon  your  face.  When  will  the  day  come  when  we  shall  enter  together 
the  birthplace  of  Christ :  when,  leaning  over  the  divine  sepulchre,  we 
weep  with  a  sister,  a  mother,  when  our  lips  touch  together  the  sacred 
wood  of  the  Cross  :  when  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  our  hearts  and  souls 
rise  together  in  the  rising  of  our  Lord  ?  Would  not  you  see  Lazarus 
coming  out  of  his  tomb,  bound  in  his  shroud  ?  and  the  waters  of  Jor- 
dan purified  for  the  washing  of  the  Lord  ?  Then  we  shall  hasten  to 
the  shepherds'  folds,  and  pray  at  the  tomb  of  David.  Listen,  it  is  the 
prophet  Amos  blowing  his  shepherd's  horn  from  the  height  of  his  rock ; 
we  shall  see  the  monuments  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  and  the 
three  famous  women,  and  Samaria  and  Nazareth,  the  flower  of  Galilee, 
and  Shiloh  and  Bethel  and  other  holy  places,  accompanied  by  Christ, 
where  churches  rise  everywhere  like  standards  of  the  victories  of 
Christ.  And  when  we  return  to  our  cavern  we  will  sing  together 
always,  and  sometimes  we  shall  weep ;  our  hearts  wounded  with  the 
arrow  of  the  Lord,  we  will  say  one  to  another,  "I  have  found  Him 
whom  my  soul  loveth ;  I  will  hold  Him,  and  will  not  let  Him  go  ! " 

Similar  words  upon  the  happiness  of  rural  life  and  retire- 
ment Jerome  had  addressed  to  Marcella  before.  He  had 
warned  her  of  the  danger  of  the  tumultuous  sea  of  life,  and 
how  the  frail  bark,  beaten  by  the  waves,  ought  to  seek  the 
shelter  of  the  port  before  the  last  hurricane  breaks.  The 
image  was  even  more  true  than  he  imagined ;  but  it  was  not 
of  the  perils  of  Borne  in  the  dreadful  time  of  war  and  siege 
which  was  approaching  that  he  spoke,  but  of  the  usual 
dangers  of  common  life  to  the  piety  of  the  recluse.  "  The 
port  which  we  offer  you,  it  is  the  solitude  of  the  fields," 
he  says : 

Brown  bread,  herbs  watered  by  our  own  hands,  and  milk,  the  dain- 
tiest of  the  country,  supply  our  rustic  feasts.  We  have  no  fear  of 
drowsiness  in  prayer  or  heaviness  in  our  readings,  on  such  fare.  In 
summer  we  seek  the  shade  of  our  trees  ;  in  autumn  the  mild  weather 
and  pure  air  invite  us  to  rest  on  a  bed  of  fallen  leaves  ;  in  spring,  when 
the  fields  are  painted  with  flowers,  we  sing  our  psalms  among  the  birds. 
When  winter  comes,  with  its  chills  and  snows,  the  wood  of  the  nearest 
forest  supplies  our  fire.  Let  Rome  keep  her  tumults,  her  cruel  arena, 
her  mad  circus,  her  luxurious  theatres  ;  let  the  senate  of  matrons  pay 
its  daily  visits.  It  is  good  for  us  to  cleave  to  the  Lord  and  to  put  all 
our  hope  in  Him. 


92  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

But  Marcella  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  these  entreaties.  Per- 
haps she  still  loved  the  senate  of  matrons,  the  meetings  of 
the  Souls,  the  irruption  of  gentle  visitors,  the  murmur  of 
all  the  stories  of  Kome,  and  the  delicate  difficulties  of  mar- 
riage and  re-marriage  brought  to  her  for  advice  and  guid- 
ance. The  allusions  in  both  these  letters  point  to  such  a 
conclusion,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
been  so.  The  Superior  of  a  convent  has  in  this  fashion  in 
much  later  days  fulfilled  more  important  uses  than  the 
gentle  nun  of  the  fields.  At  all  events  this  lady  remained 
in  her  home,  her  natural  place,  and  continued  to  pour  forth 
her  bounty  upon  the  poor  of  her  native  city :  which  many 
would  agree  was  perhaps  the  better,  though  it  certainly  was 
not  the  safer,  way.  The  death  of  her  mother,  which  made 
a  change  in  her  life,  and  might  have  justified  a  still  greater 
breaking  up  of  all  old  customs  and  ties,  was  perhaps  the 
occasion  of  these  affectionate  arguments;  but  Marcella 
would  herself  be  no  longer  young  and  in  a  position  much 
resembling  that  of  a  mother  in  her  own  person,  the  trusted 
friend  of  many  in  Kome,  and  their  closest  tie  to  a  more 
spiritual  and  better  life.  The  light  of  such  a  guest  as 
Jerome,  attracting  all  eyes  to  the  house  and  bringing  it 
within  the  records  of  literary  history,  that  sole  mode  of 
saving  the  daily  life  of  a  household  from  oblivion  —  had 
indeed  died  away,  leaving  life  perhaps  a  little  flat  and 
blank,  certainly  much  less  agitated  and  visible  to  the  outer 
world  than  when  he  was  pouring  forth  fire  and  flame  upon 
every  adversary  from  within  the  shelter  of  its  peaceful 
walls.  But  no  other  change  had  happened  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  Marcella  opened  her  palace  to  a  few 
consecrated  sisters,  and  made  it  a  general  oratory  and  place 
of  pious  counsel  and  retreat  for  the  ladies  of  Eome.  The 
same  devout  readings,  the  same  singing  of  psalms  (some- 
times in  the  original),  the  same  life  of  mingled  piety  and 
intellectualism  must  have  gone  on  as  before :  and  other  fine 


vi.J  THE  MOTHER   HOUSE.  93 

ladies  perhaps  not  less  interesting  than  Paula  must  have 
sought  with  their  confessions  and  confidences  the  ear  of  the 
experienced  woman,  who  as  Paula  says  in  respect  to  herself 
and  her  daughters,  "  first  carried  the  sparkle  of  light  to  our 
hearts,  and  collected  us  like  chickens  under  your  wing." 
She  was  the  same,  "  our  gentle,  our  sweet  Marcella,  sweeter 
than  honey,"  open  to  every  charity  and  kindness :  not  refus- 
ing, it  would  seem,  to  visit  as  well  as  to  be  visited,  and 
willing  to  "  live  the  life  "  without  forsaking  any  ordinary 
bonds  or  traditions  of  existence.  There  is  less  to  tell  of 
her  for  this  reason,  but  not  perhaps  less  to  praise. 

Marcella  had  her  share  no  doubt  in  forming  the  minds 
of  the  two  younger  spirits,  vowed  from  their  cradle  to  the 
perfect  life  of  virginhood,  the  second  Paula,  daughter  of 
Toxotius  and  his  Christian  wife;  and  the  younger  Melania, 
daughter  also  of  the  son  whom  his  mother  had  abandoned  as 
an  infant.  It  is  a  curious  answer  to  the  stern  virtue  which 
reproaches  these  two  Roman  ladies  with  the  cruel  desertion 
of  their  children,  to  find  that  both  those  children,  grown 
men,  permitted  or  encouraged  the  vocation  of  their  daugh- 
ters, and  were  proud  of  the  saintly  renown  of  the  mothers 
who  had  left  them  to  their  fate.  The  consecrated  daughters 
however  leave  only  a  faint  trace  as  of  two  spotless  catechu- 
mens in  the  story.  Incidents  of  a  more  exciting  character 
broke  now  and  then  the  calm  of  life  in  the  palace  on  the 
Aventine.  M.  Thierry  in  his  life  of  Jerome  gives  us  per- 
haps a  sketch  too  entertaining  of  Fabiola,  one  of  the  ladies 
more  or  less  associated  with  the  house  of  Marcella,  a  con- 
stant visitor,  a  penitent  by  times,  an  enthusiast  in  charity, 
a  woman  bent  on  making,  or  so  it  seemed,  the  best  of  both 
worlds.  She  had  made  early  what  for  want  of  a  better 
expression  we  may  call  a  love  match,  in  which  she  had  been 
bitterly  disappointed.  That  a  divorce  should  follow  was 
both  natural  and  lawful  in  the  opinion  of  the  time,  and 
Fabiola  had  already  formed  a  new  attachment  and  made 


94  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

haste  to  marry  again.  But  the  second  marriage  was  a  dis- 
appointment even  greater  than  the  first,  and  this  repeated 
failure  seems  to  have  confused  and  excited  her  mind  to 
issues  by  no  means  clear  at  first,  probably  even  to  herself. 
She  made  in  the  distraction  of  her  life  a  sudden  and  unan- 
nounced visit  to  Paula's  convent  at  Bethlehem,  where  she 
was  a  welcome  and  delightful  visitor,  carrying  with  her 
all  the  personal  news  that  cannot  be  put  into  writing,  and 
the  gracious  ways  of  an  accomplished  woman  of  the  world. 
She  is  supposed  to  have  had  a  private  object  of  her  own 
under  this  visit  of  friendship,  but  the  atmosphere  and  occu- 
pations of  the  place  must  have  overawed  Fabiola,  and  though 
her  object  was  hidden  in  an  artful  web  of  fiction  she  was 
not  bold  enough  to  reveal  it,  either  to  the  stern  Jerome  or 
the  mild  Paula.  What  she  did  was  to  make  herself  delight- 
ful to  both  in  the  little  society  upon  which  we  have  so  many 
side-lights,  and  which  doubtless,  though  so  laborious  and 
full  of  privations,  was  a  very  delightful  society,  none  better, 
with  such  a  man  as  Jerome,  full  of  intellectual  power,  and 
human  experience,  at  its  head,  and  ladies  of  the  highest 
breeding  like  Paula  and  her  daughter  to  regulate  its  simple 
habits.  We  are  told  of  one  pretty  scene  where  —  amid 
the  talk  which  no  doubt  ran  upon  the  happiness  of  that 
peaceful  life  amid  the  pleasant  fields  where  the  favoured 
shepherds  heard  the  angels'  song  —  there  suddenly  rose  the 
voice  of  the  new-comer  reciting  with  the  most  enchanting 
flattery  a  certain  famous  letter  which  Jerome  long  before 
had  written  to  his  friend  Heliodorus  and  which  had  been 
read  in  all  the  convents  and  passed  from  hand  to  hand  as 
a  chef  d'ceuvre  of  literary  beauty  and  sacred  enthusiasm. 
Fabiola,  quick  and  adroit  and  emotional,  had  learned  it  by 
heart,  and  Jerome  would  have  been  more  than  man  had  he 
not  felt  the  charm  of  such  flattery. 

For  a  moment  the  susceptible  Roman  seems  to  have  felt 
that  she  had  attained  the  haven  of  peace  after  her  disturbed 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  95 

and  agitated  life.  Her  hand  was  full  and  her  heart  gener- 
ous :  she  spread  her  charities  far  and  wide  among  poor  pil- 
grims and  poor  residents  with  that  undoubting  liberality 
which  considered  almsgiving  as  one  of  the  first  of  Christian 
duties.  But  whether  the  little  busy  society  palled  after  a 
time,  or  whether  it  was  the  great  scare  of  the  rumour  that 
the  Huns  were  coming  that  frightened  Fabiola,  we  cannot 
tell,  nor  precisely  how  long  her  stay  was.  Her  coming  and 
going  were  at  least  within  the  space  of  two  years.  She 
was  not  made  to  settle  down  to  the  revision  of  manuscripts 
like  her  friends,  though  she  had  dipped  like  them  into 
Hebrew  and  had  a  pretty  show  of  knowledge.  She  would 
seem  to  have  evidenced  this  however  more  by  curious  and 
somewhat  frivolous  questions  than  by  any  assistance  given 
in  the  work  which  was  going  on.  Nothing  could  be  more 
kind,  more  paternal,  than  Jerome  to  the  little  band  of 
women  round  him.  He  complains,  it  is  true,  that  Fabiola 
sometimes  propounded  problems  and  did  not  wait  for  an 
answer,  and  that  occasionally  he  had  to  reply  that  he  did 
not  know,  when  she  puzzled  him  with  this  rapid  stream  of 
inquiry.  But  it  is  evident  also  that  he  did  his  best  sin- 
cerely to  satisfy  her  curiosity  as  if  it  had  been  the  sincerest 
thing  in  the  world.  For  instance,  she  was  seized  with  a 
desire  to  know  the  symbolical  meaning  of  the  costume  of 
the  high  priest  among  the  Jews :  and  to  gratify  this  desire 
Jerome  occupied  a  whole  night  in  dictating  to  one  of  his 
scribes  a  little  treatise  on  the  subject,  which  probably  the 
fine  lady  scarcely  took  time  to  read.  Nothing  can  be  more 
characteristic  than  the  indications  of  this  bright  and  charm- 
ing visitor,  throwing  out  reflections  of  all  that  was  going 
on  round  her,  so  brilliant  that  they  seemed  better  than  the 
reality,  fluttering  upon  the  surface  of  their  lives,  bringing 
all  under  her  spell. 

There  seems  but  little  ground  however  for  the  supposition 
of  M.  Thierry  that  it  was  in  the  interest  of  Fabiola  that 


96  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Amandus,  a  priest  in  Rome,  wrote  a  letter  laying  before 
Jerome  a  case  of  conscience,  that  of  a  woman  who  had 
divorced  her  husband  and  married  again,  and  who  now  was 
troubled  in  her  mind  as  to  her  duty;  whether  the  second 
husband  was  wholly  unlawful,  and  whether  she  could 
remain  in  full  communion  with  the  Church,  having  made 
this  marriage?  If  she  was  the  person  referred  to  no  one 
has  been  able  to  divulge  what  the  question  meant  —  whether 
she  had  a'  third  marriage  in  her  mind,  or  if  a  wholly 
unnecessary  tit  of  compunction  had  seized  her ;  for  as  a 
matter  of  fact  she  had  never  been  subjected  by  the  Church 
to  any  pains  or  penalties  in  consequence  of  her  second  mar- 
riage. Jerome  however,  as  might  have  been  expected  of 
him,  gave  forth  no  uncertain  sound  in  his  reply.  Accord- 
ing  to  the  Church,  he  said,  there  could  be  but  one  husband, 
the  first.  Whatever  had  been  his  unworthiness,  to  replace 
him  by  another  was  to  live  in  sin.  Whether  it  was  this 
answer  which  decided  her  action,  or  whether  she  had  been 
moved  by  the  powerful  fellowship  of  Bethlehem  to  renounce 
the  more  agitating  course  of  worldly  life,  at  least  it  is  cer- 
tain that  Fabiola's  career  was  changed  from  this  time. 
Perhaps  it  was  her  desire  to  shake  off  the  second  husband 
which  moved  her.  At  all  events  on  her  return  to  Eome  she 
announced  to  the  bishop  that  she  felt  herself  guilty  of  a 
great  sin,  and  that  she  desired  to  make  public  penance  for 
the  same. 

Accordingly  on  the  eve  of  Easter,  when  the  penitents 
assembled  under  the  porch  of  the  great  Church  of  St.  John 
Lateran,  amid  all  the  wild  and  haggard  figures  appearing 
there,  murderers  and  criminals  of  all  kinds,  the  delicate 
Fabiola,  with  her  hair  hanging  about  her  shoulders,  ashes 
on  her  head  and  on  the  dark  robe  that  covered  her,  her  face 
pale  with  fasting  and  tears,  stood  among  them,  a  sight  for 
the  world.  Under  many  aspects  had  all  Eome  seen  this 
daughter  of  the  great  Fabian  race,  in  the  splendour  of  her 


VI.] 


THE  MOTHER  HOUSE. 


97 


worldly  espousals,  and  at  all  the  great  spectacles  and  enter- 
tainments of  a  city  given  up  to  display  and  amusement. 
Her  jewels,  her  splendid  dresses,  her  fine  equipages,  were 
well  known.  With  what  curiosity  would  all  her  old  admir- 
ers, her  rivals  in  splendour,  those  who  had  envied  her  lux- 
ury and  high  place,  gather  to  see  her  now  in  her  voluntary 
humiliation,  descending  to  the  level  of  the  very  lowest  as 
she  had  hitherto  been  on  the  very  highest  apex  of  society ! 


SAN   BAKTOLOMMEO. 


All  Eome  we  are  told  was  there,  gazing,  wondering,  tracing 
her  movements  under  the  portico,  among  these  unaccustomed 
companions.  Perhaps  there  might  be  a  supreme  fantastic 
satisfaction  to  the  penitent  —  with  that  craving  for  sensa- 
tion which  the  exhaustion  of  all  kinds  of  triumphs  and 
pleasures  brings  — •  in  thus  stepping  from  one  extreme  to  the 
other,  a  gratification  in  the  thought  that  Borne  which  had 
worshipped  her  beauty  and  splendour  was  now  gazing  aghast 
at  her  bare .  feet  and  dishevelled  hair.  One  can  have  no 


98  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

doubt  of  the  sensation  experienced  by  the  Tola  urbe  spec- 
tante  Romana.  It  was  worth  while  frequenting  religious 
ceremonies  when  such  a  sight  was  possible !  Fabiola,  — 
once  with  mincing  steps,  and  gorgeous  liveried  servants  on 
either  hand,  descending  languidly  the  great  marble  steps 
from  her  palace  to  the  gilded  carriage  in  which  she  sank 
fatigued  when  that  brief  course  was  over,  the  mitella  blazing 
with  gold  upon  her  head,  her  robe  woven  with  all  the  tints 
of  the  rainbow  into  metallic  splendour  of  gold  and  silver 
threads.  And  now  to  see  her  amid  that  crowd  of  ruffians 
from  the  Campagna,  and  unhappy  women  from  the  purlieus 
of  the  city,  her  splendid  head  uncovered,  her  thin  hands 
crossed  in  the  rough  sleeves  of  the  penitent's  gown!  It 
might  be  to  some  perhaps  a  salutary  sight  —  moving  other 
great  ladies  with  heavier  sins  on  their  heads  than  Fabiola' s 
to  feel  the  prickings  of  remorse;  though  no  doubt  it  is 
equally  possible  that  they  might  think  they  saw  through 
her,  and  the  new  form  of  self-exhibition  which  attracted  all 
the  world  to  gaze.  We  are  not  told  whether  Fabiola  found 
refuge  in  the  house  on  the  Aventine  with  Marcella,  who 
had  lit  the  fire  of  Christian  faith  in  her  heart  as  well  as  in 
that  of  Paula :  or  whether  she  remained,  like  Marcella,  in 
her  own  house,  making  it  another  centre  of  good  works. 
But  at  all  events  her  life  from  this  moment  was  entirely 
given  up  to  charity  and  spiritual  things.  Her  kinsfolk  and 
noble  neighbours  still  more  or  less  Pagan,  were  filled  with 
fury  and  indignation  and  that  sharp  disgust  at  the  loss  of 
so  much  good  money  to  the  world,  which  had  so  much  to 
do  in  embittering  opposition :  but  the  Christians  were  deeply 
impressed,  the  homage  of  such  a  great  lady  to  the  faith, 
and  her  recantation  of  her  errors  affecting  many  as  a  true 
martyrdom. 

If  it  was  really  compunction  for  the  sin  of  the  second 
marriage  which  so  moved  her,  her  position  would  much 
resemble  that  of  the  fine  fleur  of  French  society  as  at  present 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  90 

constituted,  in  its  tremendous  opposition  to  the  law  of 
divorce,  now  lawful  in  France  of  the  nineteenth  century  as 
it  was  in  Rome  of  the  fourth  —  but  resisted  with  a  splendid 
bigotry  of  feeling,  altogether  independent  of  morality  or 
even  of  reason,  by  all  that  is  noblest  in  the  country. 
Fabiola's  divorce  had  been  perfectly  lawful  and  according 
to  all  the  teaching  and  traditions  of  her  time.  The  Church 
had  as  yet  uplifted  no  voice  against  it.  She  had  not  been 
shut  out  from  the  society  even  of  the  most  pious,  or  con- 
demned to  any  penance  or  deprivation.  Not  even  Jerome 
(till  forced  to  give  a  categorical  answer),  nor  that  purest 
circle  of  devout  women  at  Bethlehem,  had  refused  her  any 
privilege.  Her  action  was  unique  and  unprecedented  as  a 
protest  against  the  existing  law  of  the  land,  as  well  as  uni- 
versal custom  and  tradition.  We  are  not  informed  whether 
it  had  any  lasting  effect,  or  formed  a  precedent  for  other 
women.  No  doubt  it  encouraged  the  formation  of  the  laws 
against  divorce  which  originated  in  the  Church  itself  but 
have  held  through  the  intervening  ages  a  doubtful  sway, 
broken  on  every  side  by  Papal  dispensations,  until  now  that 
they  have  settled  down  into  a  bond  of  iron  on  the  con- 
sciences of  the  devout  —  chiefly  the  women,  more  specially 
still  the  gentlewomen  —  of  Catholic  Europe,  where  as  in 
Fabiola's  time  they  are  once  more  against  the  law  of  the 
land. 

The  unworthy  second  husband  we  are  informed  had  died 
even  before  Fabiola's  public  act  of  penitence;  but  no  fur- 
ther movements  towards  the  world,  or  the  commoner  ways 
of  life  reveal  themselves  in  her  future  career.  If  she 
returned  to  life  with  the  veiled  head  and  bare  feet  of  her 
penitence,  or  if  she  resumed,  like  Marcella,  much  of  the 
ordinary  traffic  of  society,  we  have  no  information.  But 
she  was  the  founder  of  the  first  public  hospital  in  Rome, 
besides  the  usual  monasteries,  and  built  in  concert  with 
Pammachius  a  hospice  at  Ostia  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber, 


100  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

where  strangers  and  travellers  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
were  received,  probably  on  the  model  of  that  hospice  for 
pilgrims  which  Paula  had  established.  And  she  was  her- 
self the  foremost  nurse  in  her  own  hospital,  shrinking  from 
no  office  of  charity.  The  Church  has  always  and  in  all  cir- 
cumstances encouraged  such  practical  acts  of  self-devotion. 
The  ladies  of  the  Aventine  and  all  the  friends  of  Jerome 
had  been  disturbed  a  little  before  by  the  arrival  of  a 
stranger  in  Rome,  also  a  pretended  friend  of  Jerome,  and 
at  first  very  willing  to  shelter  himself  under  that  title, 
Rufinus,  who  brought  with  him  —  after  a  moment  of  delu- 
sive amiability  during  which  he  had  almost  deceived  the 
very  elect  themselves  —  a  blast  of  those  wild  gales  of  polemi- 
cal warfare  which  had  been  echoing  for  some  time  with 
sacrilegious  force  and  inappropriateness  from  the  Mount  of 
Olives  itself.  The  excitement  which  he  raised  in  Rome  in 
respect  to  the  doctrines  of  Origen  caused  much  commotion 
in  the  community,  which  lived  as  much  by  news  of  the 
Church  and  reports  of  all  that  was  going  on  in  theology  as 
by  the  daily  bread  of  their  charities  and  kindness.  It  was 
to  Marcella  that  Jerome  wrote,  when,  reports  having  been 
made  to  him  of  all  that  had  happened,  he  exploded,  with 
the  flaming  bomb  of  his  furious  rhetoric,  the  fictitious  state- 
ments of  Rufinus,  by  which  he  was  made  to  appear  a  sup- 
porter of  Origen.  Into  that  hot  and  fierce  controversy  we 
have  no  need  to  enter.  No  one  can  study  the  life  of  Jerome 
without  becoming  acquainted  with  this  episode  and  finding 
out  how  much  the  wrath  of  a  Father  of  the  Church  is  like 
the  rage  of  other  men,  if  not  more  violent;  but  happily  as 
Eome  was  not  the  birthplace  of  this  fierce  quarrel  it  is  quite 
immaterial  to  our  subject  or  story.  It  filled  the  house  of 
Marcella  with  trouble  and  doubt  for  a  time,  with  indigna- 
tion afterwards  when  the  facts  of  the  controversy  were 
better  known;  but  interesting  as  it  must  have  been  to  the 
eager  theologians  there,  filling  their  halls  with  endless 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  101 

discussions  and  alarms,  lest  this  new  agitation  should 
interfere  with  the  repose  of  their  friend,  it  is  no  longer 
interesting  except  to  the  student  now.  Rufinus  was  finally 
unmasked,  and  condemned  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  chiefly 
by  the  exertions  of  Marcella,  whom  Oceanus,  coining  hot 
from  the  scene  of  the  controversy,  and  Paulinian  the 
brother  of  Jerome,  had  instructed  in  his  true  character. 
Events  were  many  at  this  moment  in  that  little  Christian 
society.  The  tumult  of  controversy  thus  excited  and  all 
the  heat  and  passion  it  brought  with  it  had  scarcely  blown 
aside,  when  the  ears  of  the  Roman  world  were  made  to 
tingle  with  the  wonderful  story  of  Fabiola,  and  the  crowd 
flew  to  behold  in  the  portico  of  the  Lateran  her  strange 
appearance  as  a  penitent;  and  the  commotion  of  that  event 
had  scarcely  subsided  when  another  wonderful  incident 
appears  in  the  contemporary  history  filling  the  house  with 
lamentation  and  woe. 

The  young  Paulina,  dear  on  all  accounts  to  the  ladies  of 
the  Aventine  as  her  mother's  daughter,  and  as  her  hus- 
band's wife  (for  Pammachius,  the  friend  and  schoolfellow 
of  Jerome,  was  one  of  the  fast  friends  and  counsellors  of 
the  community),  as  well  as  for  her  own  virtues,  died  in  the 
flower  of  life  and  happiness,  a  rich  and  noble  young  matron 
exhibiting  in  her  own  home  and  amid  the  common  duties 
of  existence,  all  the  noblest  principles  of  the  Christian  faith. 
She  had  not  chosen  what  these  consecrated  women  con- 
sidered as  the  better  way:  but  in  her  own  method,  and 
amid  a  world  lying  in  wickedness,  had  unfolded  that  white 
flower  of  a  blameless  life  which  even  monks  and  nuns  were 
thankful  to  acknowledge  r.s  capable  of  existing  here  and 
there  in  the  midst  of  worldly  splendours  and  occupations. 
She  left  no  children  behind  her,  so  that  her  husband  Pam- 
machius was  free  of  the  anxieties  and  troubles,  as  well  as 
of  the  joy  and  pride,  of  a  family  to  regulate  and  provide 
for.  His  young  wife  left  to  him  all  her  property  on  con- 


102  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP, 

dition  that  it  should  be  distributed  among  the  poor,  and 
when  he  had  fulfilled  this  bequest  the  sorrowful  husband 
himself  retired  from  life,  and  entered  a  convent,  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  strong  impulse  which  swayed  so  many.  Before 
th^s  occurred  however  "  all  Rome  "  was  roused  by  another 
great  spectacle.  The  entire  city  was  invited  to  the  funeral 
of  Paulina  as  if  it  had  been  to  her  marriage,  though  those 
who  came  were  not  the  same  wondering  circles  who  crowded 
round  the  Lateran  gate  to  see  Fabiola  in  her  humiliation. 
It  was  the  poor  of  Rome  who  were  called  by  sound  of  trum- 
pet in  every  street,  to  assemble  around  the  great  Church  of 
St.  Peter,  where  were  those  tombs  of  the  Apostles  which 
every  Christian  visited  as  the  most  sacred  of  shrines,  and 
where  Paulina  was  laid  forth  upon  her  bier,  the  mistress  of 
the  feast.  The  custom  was  an  old  one,  and  chambers  for 
these  funeral  repasts  were  attached  to  the  great  catacombs 
and  all  places  of  burial.  The  funeral  feast  of  Paulina  how- 
ever meant  more  than  ordinary  celebrations  of  the  kind,  as 
the  place  in  which  it  was  held  was  more  impressive  and 
imposing  than  an  ordinary  sepulchre  however  splendid. 
She  must  have  been  carried  through  the  streets  in  solemn 
procession,  from  the  heights  on  which  stood  the  palaces  of 
her  ancient  race,  across  the  bridge,  and  by  the  tomb  of 
Hadrian  to  that  great  basilica  where  the  Apostles  lay,  her 
husband  and  his  friends  following  the  bier :  and  in  all  like- 
lihood Marcella  and  her  train  were  also  there,  replacing  the 
distant  mother.  St.  Peter's  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  was 
not  the  St.  Peter's  we  know;  but  it  was  even  then  a  great 
basilica,  with  wide  extending  porticoes  and  squares,  and 
lofty  roof,  though  the  building  was  scarcely  quite  detached 
from  the  rock  out  of  which  the  back  part  of  the  cathedral 
had  been  hewn. 

Many  strange  sights  have  been  seen  in  that  spot  which 
once  was  the  centre  of  the  civilised  world,  and  this  which 
seems  to  us  one  of  the  strangest  was  in  no  way  unusual  or 


VI.] 


THE  MOTHER  HOUSE* 


103 


against  the  traditions  of  the  age  in  which  it  occurred.  The 
church  itself,  and  all  its  surroundings,  nave  and  aisles  and 
porticoes,  and  the  square  beyond,  were  filled  with  tables, 
and  to  these  from  all  the  four  quarters  of  Rome,  from  the 
circus  and  the  benches  of  the  Colosseum,  where  the  wretched 
slept  and  lurked,  from  the  sunny  pavements,  and  all  the 
dens  and  haunts  of  the  poor  by  the  side  of  the  Tiber,  the 
crowds  poured,  in  those  unconceivable  yet  picturesque  rags 
which  clothe  the  wretchedness  of  the  South.  They  were 


ST.  PETER'S,  FROM  THE  JANICULUM. 

ushered  solemnly  to  their  seats,  the  awe  of  the  place,  let 
us  hope,  quieting  the  voices  of  a  profane  and  degraded 
populace,  and  overpowering  the  whispering,  rustling,  many- 
coloured  multitude.  Outside  the  later  comers  would  be 
more  unrestrained,  and  the  roar,  even  though  subdued,  of 
thronging  humanity  must  have  come  in  strangely  to  the 
silence  of  the  great  church,  and  of  the  mourners,  bent  upon 
doing  Paulina  honour  in  this  curious  way.  Did  she  lie 
there  uplifted  on  her  high  bier  to  receive  her  guests?  Or 
was  the  heart-broken  Pammachius  the  host,  standing  pale 
upon  the  steps,  over  the  grave  of  the  Apostles?  When  they 


104  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

were  "  saturated  "  with  food  and  wine,  the  first  assembly  left 
their  places  and  were  succeeded  by  another,  each  as  he 
went  away  receiving  from  the  hands  of  Pammachius  him- 
self a  sum  of  money  and  a  new  garment.  "  Happy  giver, 
unwearied  distributor ! "  says  the  record.  The  livelong 
day  this  process  went  on;  a  winter  day  in  Borne,  not 
always  warm,  not  always  genial,  very  cold  outside  in  the 
square  under  the  evening  breeze,  and  no  doubt  growing 
more  and  more  noisy  as  one  band  continued  to  succeed 
another,  and  the  first  fed  lingered  about  comparing  their 
gifts,  and  hoping  perhaps  for  some  remnants  to  be  collected 
at  the  end  from  the  abundant  and  oft-renewed  meal.  There 
were  no  doubts  in  anybody's  mind,  as  we  have  said,  about 
encouraging  pauperism  or  demoralising  the  recipients  of 
these  gifts ;  perhaps  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  demoral- 
ise further  that  mendicant  crowd.  But  one  cannot  help 
wondering  how  the  peace  was  kept,  whether  there  were 
soldiers  or  some  manner  of  classical  police  about  to  keep 
order,  or  if  the  disgusted  Senators  would  have  to  bestir 
themselves  to  prevent  this  wild  Christian  carnival  of  sor- 
row and  charity  from  becoming  a  danger  to  the  public 
peace. 

We  are  told  that  it  was  the  sale  of  Paulina's  jewels,  and 
her  splendid  toilettes  which  provided  the  cost  of  this  ex- 
traordinary funeral  feast.  "The  beautiful  dresses  woven 
with  threads  of  gold  were  turned  into  warm  robes  of  wool 
to  cover  the  naked;  the  gems  that  adorned  her  neck  and  her 
hair  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things."  Poor  Paulina! 
She  had  worn  her  finery  very  modestly  according  to  all 
reports ;  it  had  served  no  purposes  of  coquetry. .  The  reader 
feels  that  something  more  congenial  than  that  coarse  and 
noisy  crowd  filling  the  church  with  its  deformities  and 
loathsomeness  might  have  celebrated  her  burial.  But  not 
so  was  the  feeling  of  the  time;  that  they  were  more  mis- 
erable than  words  could  say,  vile,  noisome,  and  unclean, 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  105 

formed  their  claim  of  right  to  all  these  gifts  —  a  claim  from 
which  their  noisy  and  rude  profanity,  their  hoarse  blas- 
phemy and  ingratitude  took  nothing  away.  Charity  was 
more  robust  in  the  early  centuries  than  in  our  fastidious 
days.  "If  such  had  been  all  the  feasts  spread  for  thee  by 
thy  Senators,"  cried  Bishop  Paulinus,  the  historian  of  this 
episode,  "oh  Kome  thou  might'st  have  escaped  the  evils 
denounced  against  thee  in  the  Apocalypse."  We  must 
remember  that  whatever  might  have  been  the  opinion  later, 
there  was  no  doubt  in  any  Christian  mind  in  the  fourth 
century  that  Rome  was  the  Scarlet  Woman  of  the  Revela- 
tion of  St.  John,  and  that  a  dreadful  fate  was  to  overwhelm 
her  luxury  and  pride. 

Pammachius,  when  he  had  fulfilled  the  wishes  of  his  wife 
in  this  way,  thrilling  the  hearts  of  the  mourning  mother  and 
sister  in  Bethlehem  with  sad  gratification,  and  edifying  the 
anxious  spectators  on  the  Aventine,  carried  out  her  will  to 
its  final  end  by  becoming  a  monk,  but  with  the  curious 
mixture  of  devotion  and  independence  common  at  the  time, 
retired  to  no  cloister,  but  lived  in  his  own  house,  fulfilling 
his  duties,  and  appearing  even  in  the  Senate  in  the  gown 
and  cowl  so  unlike  the  splendid  garb  of  the  day.  He  was 
no  doubt  one  of  the  members  for  the  poor  in  that  august 
but  scarcely  active  assembly,  and  occupied  henceforward  all 
his  leisure  in  works  of  charity  and  religious  organisations, 
in  building  religious  houses,  and  protecting  Christians  in 
every  necessity  of  life. 

We  have  said  that  Rome  in  these  days  was  as  freely 
identified  with  the  Scarlet  Woman  of  the  Apocalypse  as 
ever  was  done  by  any  Reformer  or  Puritan  in  later  times. 
To  Jerome  she  was  as  much  Babylon,  and  as  damnable  and 
guilty  in  every  way  as  if  he  had  been  an  Orangeman  or 
Covenanter.  Mildness  was  not  general  either  in  speech  or 
thought :  it  has  seldom  been  so  perhaps  in  religious  contro- 
versy. It  is  curious  indeed  to  mark  how,  so  near  the  fount 


106  THE   MAKERS  OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

of  Christianity,  the  Church  had  already  come  to  rend  itself 
with  questions  of  doctrine,  and  expend  on  discussions  of 
philosophical  subtlety  the  force  that  was  wanted  for  the 
moral  advantage  of  the  world.  But  that  no  doubt  was  one 
of  the  defects  of  the  great  principle  of  self-devotion  which 
aimed  at  emptying  the  mind  of  everything  worldly  and 
practical,  and  fixing  it  entirely  upon  spiritual  subjects,  thus 
substituting  them  for  the  ruder  obstacles  which  occupied  in 
common  life  the  ruder  forces  of  nature. 

All  things  however  were  now  moving  swiftly  towards  one 
of  the  great  catastrophes  of  the  ages.  Though  Christianity 
was  young,  the  entire  system  of  the  world's  government 
was  old  and  drawing  towards  its  fall.  Eome  was  dead,  or 
virtually  so,  and  all  the  old  prestige,  the  old  pride  and  pre- 
tension of  her  race,  were  perishing  miserably  in  those  last  vul- 
garities of  luxury  and  display  which  were  all  that  was  left  to 
her.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  crumbling  of  all  common 
ties  which  took  place  within  her  bosom,  under  the  invasion 
of  the  monkish  missionaries  from  the  East,  and  the  influ- 
ence of  Athanasius,  Jerome,  and  others  —  had  been  for  some 
time  undermining  her  unity,  and  that  the  rent  between  that 
portion  of  the  aristocracy  of  Rome  which  still  held  by  the 
crumbling  system  of  Paganism,  and  those  who  had  adopted 
the  new  faith,  was  now  complete.  Rome  which  had  been 
the  seat  of  empire,  the  centre  from  which  law  and  power 
had  gone  out  over  all  the  earth,  the  very  impersonation  of 
the  highest  forces  of  humanity,  the  pride  of  life,  the  emi- 
nence of  family  and  blood  —  now  saw  her  highest  names 
subjected  voluntarily  to  strange  new  laws  of  humiliation, 
whole  households  trooping  silently  away  in  the  garb  of 
servants  to  the  desert  somewhere,  to  the  Holy  Land  on 
pilgrimages,  or  living  a  life  of  hardship  and  privation 
and  detachment  from  all  public  interests,  in  the  very 
palaces  which  had  once  been  the  seats  of  authority.  Her 
patricians  moved  silent  about  the  streets  in  the  rude 


VI.] 


THE  MOTHER  HOUSE. 


107 


sandals  and  mean  robes  of  the  monk  :  her  great  ladies 
drove  forth  no  longer  resplendent  as  Venus  on  her  car,  but 
stood  like  penitent  Magdalenes  upon  the  steps  of  a  church ; 
and  bridegroom  and  bride  no  longer  linked  with  flowery 
garlands,  but  with  the  knotted  cord  of  monastic  rule,  lived 
like  vestals  side  by  side.  What  was  to  come  to  a  society  so 
broken  up  and  undermined,  knowing  no  salvation  save  in 
its  own  complete  undoing,  preparing  unconsciously  for  some 
convulsion  at  hand?  The  interpreter  of  the  dark  sayings  of 


ST.  PETER'S,  FROM  THE  PINCIO. 

prophecy  goes  on  through  one  lingering  age  after  another, 
holding  the  threats  of  divine  justice  as  still  and  always 
unfulfilled,  and  will  never  be  content  that  it  is  any  other 
than  the  present  economy  which  is  marked  with  the  curse 
and  threatened  with  the  ruin  of  Apocalyptic  denunciations. 
But  no  one  could  doubt  that  the  wine  was  red  in  that  cup  of 
the  wrath  of  God  which  the  city  of  so  many  sins  held  in  her 
hand.  The  voice  that  called  "  Come  out  of  her,  my  people," 
had  rung  aloud  in  tones  unmistakable,  calling  the  best  of 
her  sons  and  daughters  from  her  side ;  her  natural  weapons 


108  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

had  fallen  from  her  nerveless  hands  ;  she  had  no  longer  any 
heart  even  to  defend  herself,  she  who  had  once  but  to  lift 
her  hand  and  the  air  had  tingled  to  the  very  boundaries  of 
the  known  world  as  if  a  blazing  sword  had  been  drawn. 
It  requires  but  little  imagination  to  appropriate  to  the 
condition  of  Borne  on  the  eve  of  the  invasion  of  Alaric  every 
strophe  of  the  magnificent  ode  in  the  eighteenth  chapter 
of  Revelation.  There  are  reminiscences  in  that  great  poem 
of  another,  of  the  rousing  of  Hell  to  meet  the  king  of  the 
former  Babylon  echoing  out  of  the  mists  of  antiquity  from 
the  lips  of  the  Hebrew  prophet.  Once  more  that  cry  was  in 
the  air  —  once  more  the  thrill  of  approaching  destruction  was 
like  the  quiver  of  heat  in  the  great  atmosphere  of  celestial 
blue  which  encircled  the  white  roofs,  the  shining  temples, 
the  old  forums  as  yet  untouched,  and  the  new  basilicas  as 
yet  scarce  completed,  of  Borne.  The  old  order  was  about 
to  change  finally,  giving  place  to  the  new. 

All  becomes  confused  in  the  velocity  and  precipitation  of 
descending  ruin.  We  can  trace  the  last  hours  of  Paula 
dying  safe  and  quiet  in  her  retreat  at  Bethlehem,  and  even 
of  the  less  gentle  Melania;  but  when  we  attempt  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  events  which  overwhelmed  the  home  of 
early  faith  on  the  Aventine,  the  confusion  of  storm  and 
sack  and  horrible  sufferings  and  terror  fills  the  air  with 
blackness.  For  years  there  had  existed  a  constant  succes- 
sion of  danger  and  reprieve,  of  threatening  hosts  (the  so- 
called  friends  not  much  better  than  the  enemies)  around  the 
walls  of  the  doomed  city,  great  figures  of  conquerors  with 
their  armies  coming  and  going,  now  the  barbarian,  now 
the  Roman  general  upon  the  height  of  the  wave  of  battle, 
the  city  escaping  by  a  hair's  breadth,  then  plunged  into 
terror  again.  And  Marcella's  house  had  suffered  with  the 
rest.  No  doubt  much  of  the  gaiety,  the  delightful  intellectu- 
al! sm  of  that  pleasant  refuge,  had  departed  with  the  alter- 
ing time.  Age  had  subdued  the  liveliness  and  brightness 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.  109 

of  a  community  still  full  of  the  correspondences,  the  much 
letter-writing  which  women  love.  Marcella's  companions 
had  died  away  from  her  side ;  life  was  more  quickly  ex- 
hausted in  these  days  of  agitation,  and  she  herself,  the 
young  and  brilliant  founder  of  that  community  of  Souls, 
must  have  been  sixty  or  more  when  the  terrible  Alaric,  a 
scourge  of  God  like  his  predecessor  Attila,  approached 
Borne.  What  had  become  of  the  rest  we  are  not  told,  or 
if  the  relics  of  the  community,  nameless  in  their  age  and 
lessened  importance,  were  still  there :  the  only  one  that  is 
mentioned  is  a  young  sister  called  Principia,  her  adopted 
child  and  attendant.  Nothing  can  be  more  likely  than  that 
the  remainder  of  the  community  had  fled,  seeking  safety, 
or  more  likely  an  unknown  death,  in  less  conspicuous  quar- 
ters of  the  city  than  the  great  palace  of  the  Aventine  with 
its  patrician  air  of  wealth  and  possible  treasure.  In  that 
great  house,  so  far  as  appears,  remained  only  its  mistress, 
her  soul  wound  up  for  any  martyrdom,  and  the  girl  who 
clung  to  her.  If  they  dared  to  look  forth  at  all  from  the 
marble  terrace  where  so  often  they  must  have  gazed  over 
Home  shining  white  in  the  sunshine  in  all  her  measured 
lines  and  great  proportions,  her  columns  and  her  domes, 
what  a  dread  scene  must  have  met  their  eyes,  clouds  of 
smoke  and  wild  gleams  of  flame,  and  the  roar  of  outcry  and 
slaughter  mounting  up  into  the  air,  soiling  the  very  sky. 
There  the  greatest  ladies  of  Rome  had  come  in  their  gran- 
deur to  enjoy  the  piquant  contrast  and  the  still  more 
piquant  talk,  the  philosophies  which  they  loved  to  penetrate 
and  understand,  the  learning  which  went  over  their  heads. 
There  Jerome,  surrounded  with  soft  flatteries  and  provoca- 
tions, had  talked  his  best,  giving  forth  out  of  his  stores  the 
tales  of  wonder  he  had  brought  from  Eastern  cells  and 
caves  and  all  the  knowledge  of  the  schools,  to  dazzle  the 
amateurs  of  the  Eoman  gynaeceum.  What  gay,  what  thrill- 
ing, what  happy  memories !  —  mingled  with  the  sweetness 


110  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  remembrance  of  gentle  Paula  who  was  dead,  of  Asella 
dead,  of  Fabiola  in  all  her  fascinations  and  caprices,  dead 
too  so  far  as  appears  —  and  no  doubt  in  those  thirty  years 
since  first  Marcella  opened  her  house  to  the  special  service 
of  God,  many  more ;  till  now  that  she  was  left  alone,  grey- 
headed, on  that  height  whither  the  fierce  Goths  were  com- 
ing, raging,  flashing  round  them  fire  and  flame,  with  the 
girl  who  would  not  leave  her,  the  young  maiden  in  her 
voiceless  meekness  whom  we  see  only  at  this  awful  mo- 
ment, she  who  might  have  a  sharper  agony  than  death 
before  her,'  the  most  appalling  of  martyrdoms. 

One  final  triumph  however  remained  for  Marcella.  By 
what  wonderful  means  we  know  not,  by  her  prayers  and 
tears,  by  supplication  on  her  knees,  to  the  rude  Goths  who 
after  their  sort  were  Christians,  and  sometimes  spared  the 
helpless  victims  and  sometimes  listened  to  a  woman's 
prayer,  she  succeeded  in  saving  her  young  companion  from 
outrage,  and  in  dragging  her  somehow  to  the  shelter  of  the 
nearest  church,  where  they  were  safe.  But  she  was  herself 
in  her  age  and  weakness,  tortured,  flogged,  and  treated  with 
the  utmost  cruelty,  that  she  might  disclose  the  hiding-place 
in  which  she  had  put  her  treasure.  The  treasure  of  the 
house  on  the  Aventine  was  not  there :  it  had  fed  the  poor, 
and  supplied  the  wants  of  the  sick  in  all  the  most  miser- 
able corners  of  Rome.  The  kicks  and  blows  of  the  baffled 
plunderers  could  not  bring  that  long-expended  gold  and 
silver  together  again.  But  these  sufferings  were  as  nothing 
in  comparison  to  the  holy  triumph  of  saving  young  Prin- 
cipia,  which  was  the  last  and  not  the  least  wonderful  work 
of  her  life.  The  very  soldiers  who  had  struck  and  beaten 
the  mistress  of  the  desolate  house  were  overcome  by  her 
patience  and  valour,  "  Christ  softened  their  hard  hearts," 
says  Jerome.  "  The  barbarians  conveyed  both  you  and  her 
to  the  basilica  that  you  might  find  a  place  of  safety  or  at 
least  a  tomb."  Nothing  can  be  more  extraordinary  in  the 


vi.]  THE  MOTHER  HOUSE.    .  113 

midst  of  this  awful  scene  of  carnage  and  rapine  than  to 
know  that  the  churches  were  sanctuaries  upon  which  the 
rudest  assailants  dared  not  to  lift  a  hand,  and  that  the  help- 
less women,  half  dead  of  fright  and  one  of  them  bleeding 
and  wounded  with  the  cruel  treatment  she  had  received, 
were  safe  as  soon  as  they  had  been  dragged  over  the  sacred 
threshold. 

The  church  in  which  Marcella  and  her  young  companion 
found  shelter  was  the  great  basilica  of  St.  Paul  fuori  le 
mum,  beyond  the  Ostian  gate.  They  were  conducted  there 
by  their  captors  themselves,  some  compassionate  Gaul  or 
Frank,  whose  rude  chivalry  of  soul  had  been  touched  by 
the  spectacle  of  the  aged  lady's  struggle  for  her  child. 
What  a  terrible  flight  through  the  darkness  must  that  have 
been  "  in  the  lost  battle  borne  down  by  the  flying "  amid 
the  trains  of  trembling  fugitives  all  bent  on  that  one  spot 
of  safety,  the  gloom  lighted  up  by  the  gleams  of  the  burn- 
ing city  behind,  the  air  full  of  shrieks  and  cries  of  the 
helpless,  the  Tiber  rushing  swift  and  strong  by  the  path  to 
swallow  any  helpless  wayfarer  pushed  aside  by  stronger 
fugitives.  The  two  ladies  reached  half-dead  the  great 
church  on  the  edge  of  the  Campagna,  the  last  refuge  of  the 
miserable,  into  which  were  crowded  the  wrecks  of  Koman 
society,  both  Pagan  and  Christian,  patrician  and  slave, 
hustled  together  in  the  equality  of  doom.  A  few  days 
after,  in  the  church  itself,  or  some  of  its  dependencies, 
Marcella  died.  Her  palace  in  ruins,  her  companions  dead 
or  fled,  she  perished  along  with  the  old  Rome  against 
whose  vices  she  had  protested,  but  which  she  had  loved 
and  would  not  abandon :  whose  poor  she  had  fed  with  her 
substance,  whose  society  she  had  attempted  to  purify,  and 
in  which  she  had  led  so  honourable  and  noble  —  may  we 
not  also  believe  amid  all  her  austerities,  in  the  brown  gown 
which  was  almost  a  scandal,  and  the  meagre  meals  that 
scarcely  kept  body  and  soul  together  ?  —  so  happy  a  life. 


114  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN"  ROME.          [CHAP. 

There  is  no  trace  now  of  the  noble  mansion  which  she 
devoted  to  so  high  a  purpose,  and  few  of  the  many  pilgrims 
who  love  to  discover  all  that  is  interesting  in  the  relics  of 
Rome,  have  even  heard  the  name  of  Marcella  — "  Illam 
mitem,  illam  suavem,  illam  omni  melle  et  dnlcedine  dul- 
ciorem  "  —  whose  example  "  lured  to  higher  worlds  and  led 
the  way."  But  her  pleasant  memory  lingers  on  the  leafy 
crest  of  the  Aventine  where  she  lived,  and  where  the 
church  of  Sta.  Sabina  now  stands :  and  her  mild  shadow 
lies  on  that  great  church  outside  the  gates,  often  destroyed, 
often  restored,  the  shrine  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  where, 
wounded  and  broken,  but  always  faithful  to  her  trust,  she 
died.  The  history  of  the  first  dedicated  household,  the 
first  convent,  the  ecclesia  domestica,  which  was  so  bright  a 
centre  of  life  in  the  old  Rome,  not  yet  entirely  Christian, 
is  thus  rounded  into  a  perfect  record.  It  began  in  380  or 
thereabouts,  it  ended  in  410.  Its  story  is  but  an  obscure 
chapter  in  the  troubled  chronicles  of  the  time  ;  but  there  is 
none  more  spotless,  and  scarcely  any  so  serenely  radiant 
and  bright. 

Pammachius  also  died  in  the  siege,  whether  among  the 
defenders  of  the  city  or  in  the  general  carnage  is  not  known, 
"  with  many  other  brothers  and  sisters  whose  death  is  an- 
nounced to  us "  Jerome  says,  whom  that  dreadful  news 
threw  into  a  stupor  of  horror  and  misery,  so  that  it  was 
some  time  before  he  could  understand  the  details  or  discover 
who  was  saved  and  who  lost.  The  saved  indeed  were  very 
few,  and  the  losses  many.  Young  Paula,  the  granddaughter 
of  the  first,  the  child  of  Toxotius,  who  also  was  happily 
dead  before  these  horrors,  had  been  for  some  years  in  Beth- 
lehem peacefully  learning  how  to  take  the  elder  Paula's 
place,  and  shedding  sweetness  into  the  life  of  the  old 
prophet  in  his  rocky,  chamber  at  Bethlehem,  and  of  the 
grave  Eustochium  in  her  convent.  Young  Melania,  stand- 
ing in  the  same  relationship  to  the  heroine  of  that  name, 


VI.] 


THE  MOTHER  HOUSE. 


115 


whose  fame  is  less  sweet,  was  out  of  harm's  way  too.  They 
and  many  humbler  members  of  the  community  had  escaped 
by  flight,  among  the  agitated  crowds  which  had  long  been 
pouring  out  of  Italy  towards  the  East,  some  from  mere 
panic,  some  by  the  vows  of  self-dedication  and  retirement 
from  the  world.  Many  more  as  has  been  seen  escaped  in 
Rome  itself,  before  its  agony  began,  by  the  still  more  effect- 
ual way  of  death.  Only  Marcella,  the  first  of  all,  the  pupil 
of  Athanasius,  the  mother  and  mistress  of  so  many  conse- 
crated souls,  fell  on  the  outraged  threshold  of  her  own 
house,  over  which  she  had  come  and  gone  for  thirty  years, 
with  those  feet  that  are  beautiful  on  the  mountains,  the 
feet  of  those  who  bring  good  tidings,  and  carry  charity  and 
loving  kindness  to  every  door. 


PORT  A  SAN  PAOLO. 


BOOK   II. 
THE   POPES   WHO   MADE   THE   PAPACY. 


THE  STEPS   OF   SAN   GREGORIO. 


BOOK   II. 
THE   POPES   WHO   MADE   THE   PAPACY. 


CHAP  TEE    I. 

GREGORY    THE    GREAT. 

TTTHEN  Borne  had  fallen  into  the  last  depths  of  deca- 
V  V  dence,  luxury,  weakness,  and  vice,  the  time  of  fierce 
and  fiery  trial  came.  The  great  city  lay  like  a  helpless  woman 
at  the  mercy  of  her  foes  —  or  rather  at  the  mercy  of  every 
new  invader  who  chose  to  sack  her  palaces  and  throw  down 
her  walls,  without  even  the  pretext  of  any  quarrel  against 
the  too  wealthy  and  luxurious  city,  which  had  been  for  her 
last  period  at  least  nobody's  enemy  but  her  own.  Alaric, 
who,  not  content  with  the  heaviest  ransom,  returned  to  rage 
through  her  streets  with  all  those  horrors  and  cruelties 
which  no  advance  in  civilisation  has  ever  yet  entirely  dis- 

119 


120  -  THE   MAKERS  OF  MQDERtf  ROME.         [CHAP. 

sociated  from  the  terrible  name  of  siege :  Attila,  whose  fear 
of  his  predecessor's  fate  and  the  common  report  of  murders 
and  portents,  St.  Peter  with  a  sword  of  flame  guarding  his 
city,  and  other  signs  calculated  to  melt  the  hearts  of  the 
very  Huns  in  their  bosoms,  kept  at  a  distance :  passed  by 
without  harming  the  prostrate  city.  But  Genseric  and  his 
Vandals  were  kept  back  by  no  such  terrors.  The  ancient 
Koine,  with  all  her  magnificent  relics  of  the  imperial  age, 
fell  into  ruin  and  was  trampled  under  foot  by  victor  after 
victor  in  the  fierce  license  of  barbarous  triumph.  Her  secret 
stores  of  treasure,  her  gold  and  silver,  her  magnificent  robes, 
her  treasures  of  art  fell,  like  her  beautiful  buildings,  into 
the  rude  hands  which  respected  nothing,  neither  beauty  nor 
the  traditions  of  a  glorious  past.  How  doth  the  city  sit  soli- 
tary that  was  full  of  people !  All  the  pathetic  and  wonder- 
ful plaints  of  the  Hebrew  prophet  over  a  still  holier  and 
more  ancient  place,  trodden  under  foot  and  turned  into  a 
desert,  rise  to  the  mind  during  this  passion  and  agony  of 
imperial  Koine.  But  the  mistress  of  the  world  had  no  such 
fierce  band  of  patriots  to  fight  inch  by  inch  for  her  holy 
places  as  had  the  old  Jerusalem.  There  were  few  to  shed 
their  blood  for  her  in  the  way  of  defence.  The  blood  that 
flowed  was  that  of  murdered  weakness,  not  that  freely  shed 
of  valiant  men. 

During  this  terrible  period  of  blood  and  outrage  and  pas- 
sion and  suffering,  one  institution  alone  stood  firm  amid  the 
ruins,  wringing  even  from  the  fiercest  of  the  barbarians  a 
certain  homage,  and  establishing  a  sanctuary  in  the  midst 
of  sack  and  siege  in  which  the  miserable  could  find  shelter. 
As  every  other  public  office  and  potency  fell,  the  Church 
raised  an  undaunted  front,  and  took  the  place  at  once  of 
authority  and  of  succour  among  the  crushed  and  down- 
trodden people.  It  is  common  to  speak  of  this  as  the  begin- 
ning of  that  astute  and  politic  wisdom  of  Kome  which  made 
the  city  in  the  middle  ages  almost  a  greater  power  than  in 


i.]  GREGORY   THE   GREAT.  121 

her  imperial  days,  and  equally  mistress  of  the  world.  But 
there  is  very  little  evidence-  that  any  great  plan  for  the 
aggrandisement  of  the  Church,  or  the  establishment  of  her 
supremacy,  had  yet  been  formed,  or  that  the  early  Popes 
had  any  larger  purpose  in  their  minds  than  to  do  their  best 
in  the  position  in  which  they  stood,  to  avert  disaster,  to 
spread  Christianity,  and  to  shield  as  far  as  was  possible 
the  people  committed  to  their  care.  No  formal  claim  of 
supremacy  over  the  rest  of  the  Church  had  been  as  yet 
made:  it  was  indeed  formally  repudiated  by  the  great 
Gregory  in  the  end  of  tfie  sixth  century  as  an  unauthor- 
ised claim,  attributed  to  the  bishops  of  Eome  only  by  their 
enemies,  though  still  more  indignantly  to  be  denounced  when 
put  forth  by  any  other  ecclesiastical  authority  such  as  the  pa- 
triarch of  Constantinople.  To  Peter,  he  says  in  one  of  his 
epistles,  was  committed  the  charge  of  the  whole  Church,  but 
his  successors  did  not  on  that  account  call  themselves  rulers 
of  the  Church  universal  —  how  much  less  a  bishropic  of  the 
East  who  had  no  such  glorious  antecedents ! 

But  if  pretension  to  the  primacy  had  not  yet  been  put 
forth,  there  had  arisen  the  practical  situation,  which  called  the 
bishops  of  Rome  to  a  kind  of  sovereignty  of  the  city.  The 
officials  of  the  empire,  a  distant  exarch  at  Ravenna,  a  feeble 
praetor  at  Kome,  had  no  power  either  to  protect  or  to  rescue. 
The  bishop  instinctively,  almost  involuntarily,  whenever  he 
was  a  man  of  strength  or  note,  was  put  into  the  breach. 
Whatever  could  be  done  by  negotiation,  he,  a  man  of  peace, 
was  naturally  called  to  do.  Innocent  procured  from  Alaric 
the  exemption  of  the  churches  from  attack  even  in  the  first 
and  most  terrible  siege;  there  wounded  men  and  flying 
women  found  refuge  in  the  hottest  of  the  pillage,  and  Mar- 
cella  struggling,  praying  for  the  deliverance  of  her  young 
nun,  through  the  brutal  crowd  which  had  invaded  her  house, 
was  in  safety  with  her  charge,  as  we  have  seen,  as  soon  as 
they  could  drag  themselves  within  the  sanctuary.  This  was 


122  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

already  a  great  thing  in  that  dread  conflict  of  force  with 
weakness — and  it  continued  to  be  the  case  more  or  less  in 
all  the  successive  waves  of  fire  and  flame  which  passed  over 
Borne.  And  when  the  terrible  tide  of  devastation  was  over, 
one  patriot  Pope  at  least  took  the  sacred  vessels  of  gold  and 
silver,  which  had  been  saved  along  with  the  people  in  their 
sanctuaries,  and  melted  them  down  to  procure  bread  for  the 
remnant,  thus  doubly  delivering  the  flock  committed  to  his 
care.  These  facts  worked  silently,  and  there  seems  no  rea- 
son to  believe  other  than  unconsciously  at  first,  towards  the 
formation  of  the  great  power  which  was  once  more  to  make 
Koine  a  centre  of  empire.  The  historian  is  too  apt  to  per- 
ceive in  every  action  an  early-formed  and  long-concealed 
project  tending  towards  one  great  end ;  and  it  is  common 
to  recognise,  even  in  the  missionary  expeditions  of  the 
Church,  as  well  as  in  the  immediate  protection  exercised 
around  her  seat,  this  astute  policy  and  ever-maturing,  ever- 
growing scheme.  But  neither  Leo  nor  Gregory  require  any 
such  explanation  of  their  motives :  their  duty  was  to  pro- 
tect, to  deliver,  to  work  day  and  night  for  the  welfare  of 
the  people  who  had  no  other  protectors :  as  it  was  their  first 
duty  to  spread  the  Gospel,  to  teach  all  nations  according  to 
their  Master's  commission.  It  is  hard  to  take  from  them 
the  credit  of  those  measures  which  were  at  once  their  natu- 
ral duty  and  their  delight,  in  order  to  make  all  their  offices 
of  mercy  subservient  to  the  establishment  of  a  universal 
authority  to  which  neither  of  them  laid  any  claim. 

While  Eome  still  lay  helpless  in  the  midst  of  successive 
invasions,  now  in  one  conqueror's  hands,  now  in  another, 
towards  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  a  young  man  of 
noble  race — whose  father  and  mother  were  both  Christians, 
the  former  occupying  a  high  official  position,  as  was  also 
the  case  with  the  son,  in  his  earlier  years  —  became  remark- 
able among  his  peers  according  to  the  only  fashion  which 
a  high  purpose  and  noble  meaning  seems  to  have  been  able 


i.]  GREGORY   THE   GREAT.  123 

to  take  at  that  period.  Perhaps  such  a  spirit  as  that  of 
Gregory  could  never  have  been  belligerent ;  yet  it  is  curi- 
ous to  note  that  no  patriotic  saviour  of  his  country,  no 
defender  of  Rome,  who  might  have  called  forth  a  spirit 
in  the  gilded  youth,  and  raised  up  the  ancient  Roman 
strength  for  the  deliverance  of  the  city,  seems  to  have 
been  possible  in  that  age  of  degeneration.  No  Maccabaeus 
was  to  be  found  among  the  ashes  of  the  race  which  once 
had  ruled  the  world.  Whatever  excellence  remained  in  it 
was  given  to  the  new  passion  of  the  cloister,  the  instinct  of 
sacrifice  and  renunciation  instead  of  resistance  and  defence. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  one  way  led  equally  with  the  other 
to  that  power  which  is  always  dear  to  the  heart  of  man: 
yet  it  is  extraordinary  that  amid  all  the  glorious  traditions 
of  Rome, — notwithstanding  the  fame  of  great  ancestors  still 
hanging  about  every  noble  house,  and  the  devotion  which 
the  city  itself,  then  as  now,  excited  among  its  children,  a 
sentiment  which  has  made  many  lesser  places  invulnerable, 
so  long  as  there  was  a  native  arm  to  strike  a  blow  for  them, 
no  single  bold  attempt  was  ever  made,  no  individual  stand, 
no  popular  frenzy  of  patriotism  ever  excited  in  defence  of 
the  old  empress  of  the  world.  The  populace  perhaps  was 
too  completely  degraded  to  make  any  such  attempt  possible, 
but  the  true  hero  when  he  appears  does  not  calculate,  and 
is  able  to  carry  out  his  glorious  effort  with  sometimes  the 
worst  materials.  However,  it  is  needless  to  attempt  to 
account  for  such  an  extraordinary  failure  in  the  very  qual- 
ities which  had  made  the  Roman  name  illustrious.  Despair 
must  have  seized  upon  the  very  heart  of  the  race.  That 
race  itself  had  been  vitiated  and  mingled  with  baser  ele- 
ments by  ages  of  conquest,  repeated  captivities,  and  over- 
throws, and  all  the  dreadful  yet  monotonous  vicissitudes  of 
disaster,  one  outrage  following  another,  and  the  dreadful 
sense  of  impotence,  which  crushes  the  very  being,  growing 
with  each  new  catastrophe.  It  must  have  appeared  to  the 


124  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

children  of  the  ancient  conquerors  that  there  was  no  refuge 
or  hope  for  them,  save  in  that  kingdom  not  of  this  world, 
which  had  risen  while  everything  else  crumbled  under  their 
feet,  which  had  been  growing  in  silence  while  the  old  econ- 
omy fell  into  ashes,  and  which  alone  promised  a  resurrec- 
tion and  renewal  worthy  of  the  highest  hopes. 

This  ideal  had  been  growing  throughout  the  world,  and 
had  penetrated  into  almost  every  region  of  Christendom 
before  the  period  of  Gregory's  birth.  Nearly  a  hundred 
and  fifty  unhappy  years  had  passed  since  Marcella  ended 
her  devout  life  amid  the  fire  and  flame  of  the  first  siege ; 
but  the  times  had  so  little  changed  that  it  was  at  first  under 
the  same  aspect  which  attracted  that  Roman  lady  and  so 
many  of  her  contemporaries,  that  the  monastic  life  recom- 
mended itself  to  the  young  patrician  Gregorius,  in  the 
home  of  his  parents,  the  Roman  villa  on  the  edge  of  that 
picturesque  and  splendid  wood  of  great  oak-trees  which 
gave  to  the  Coelian  Hill  its  first  title  of  Mons  Querquetu- 
lanus.  It  had  been  from  the  beginning  of  his  life  a  devout 
house,  full  of  the  presence  and  influence  of  three  saintly 
women,  all  afterwards  canonised,  his  mother  Silvia  and  his 
father's  sisters.  That  father  himself  was  at  least  not  un- 
congenial to  his  surroundings,  though  living  the  usual  life, 
full  of  magnificence  and  display,  of  the  noble  Roman,  filling 
in  his  turn  great  offices  in  the  state,  or  at  least  the  name  and 
outward  pomp  of  offices  which  had  once  been  great.  Some 
relics  of  ancient  temples  gleaming  through  the  trees  beyond 
the  gardens  of  the  villa  must  still  have  existed  among  the 
once  sacred  groves ;  and  the  vast  buildings  of  the  old  econ- 
omy, the  Colosseum  behind,  the  ruined  and  roofless  palaces 
of  the  Palatine,  would  be  visible  from  the  terrace  on  which 
the  meditative  youth  wandered,  pondering  over  Rome  at  his 
feet  and  the  great  world  lying  beyond,  in  which  there  were 
endless  marchings  and  countermarchings  of  barbarous 
armies,  one  called  in  to  resist  the  other,  Huns  and  Vandals 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  125 

from  one  quarter,  irresistible  Franks,  alien  races  all  given  to 
war,  while  the  secret  and  soul  of  peace  lay  in  that  troubled 
and  isolated  stronghold  of  Him  whose  kingdom  was  not 
of  this  world.  Gregory  musing  can  have  had  no  thought, 
such  as  we  should  put  instinctively  into  the  mind  of  a 
noble  young  man  in  such  circumstances,  of  dying  upon  the 
breached  and  crumbling  walls  for  his  country,  or  leading 
any  forlorn  hope ;  and  if  his  fancy  strayed  instead  far  from 
those  scenes  of  battle  and  trouble  to  the  convent  cells  and 
silent  brotherhoods,  where  men  disgusted  and  sick  of  heart 
could  enter  and  pray,  it  was  as  yet  with  no  thought  or  inten- 
tion of  following  their  example.  He  tells  us  himself  that  he 
resisted  as  long  as  he  could  "the  grace  of  conversion,"  and  as 
a  matter  of  fact  entered  into  the  public  life  such  as  it  was,  of 
the  period,  following  in  his  father's  footsteps,  and  was  him- 
self, like  Gordianus,  praetor  urbis  in  his  day,  when  he  had 
attained  the  early  prime  of  manhood.  The  dates  of  his  life 
are  dubious  until  we  come  to  his  later  years,  but  it  is  sup- 
posed that  he  was  born  about  540;  and  he  was  recom- 
mended for  the  Prsetorship  by  the  Emperor  Julius,  which 
must  have  been  before  573,  at  which  date  he  would  have 
attained  the  age  of  thirty-three,  that  period  so  significant  in 
the  life  of  man,  the  limit,  as  is  believed,  of  our  Lord's  exist- 
ence on  earth,  and  close  to  that  mezzo  del  cammin  which  the 
poet  has  celebrated  as  the  turning-point  of  life.  In  his 
splendid  robes,  attended  by  his  throng  of  servants,  he  must 
no  doubt  have  ruffled  it  with  the  best  among  the  officials  of 
a  state  which  had  scarcely  anything  but  lavish  display  and 
splendour  to  justify  its  pretence  of  government ;  but  we  hear 
nothing  either  of  the  early  piety  or  early  profanity  which 
generally  distinguish,  one  or  the  other,  the  beginning  of  a 
predestined  saint.  Neither  prodigal  nor  devotee,  the  son  of 
Gordianus  and  Silvia  did  credit  to  his  upbringing,  even  if 
he  did  not  adopt  its  austerer  habits.  But  when  his  father 
died,  the  attraction  which  drew  so  many  towards  the  clois- 


126  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ter  must  have  begun  to  operate  upon  Gregory.  When  all 
the  wealth  came  into  his  hands,  when  his  devout  mother 
retired  to  her  nun's  cell  on  the  Aventine,  close  to  the  old 
basilica  of  S.  Sabba,  giving  up  the  world,  and  the  young 
man  was  left  in  full  possession  of  his  inheritance  and  the 
dwelling  of  his  fathers,  he  would  seem  to  have  come  to  a 
serious  pause  in  his  life.  Did  he  give  a  large  slice  of  his 
fortune  to  endow  monasteries  in  distant  Sicily,  as  far  out  of 
the  way,  one  might  say,  as  possible,  by  way  of  compromis- 
ing with  his  conscience,  and  saving  himself  from  the  sweep 
of  the  current  which  had  begun  to  catch  his  feet  ?  Perhaps 
it  was  some  family  connection  with  Sicily  —  estates,  situated 
there  as  some  think,  which  prompted  the  appropriation  of 
his  gifts  to  that  distant  island ;  but  this  is  mere  speculation, 
and  all  that  the  authorities  tell  us  is  that  he  did  establish 
and  endow  six  monasteries  in  Sicily,  without  giving  any 
reason  for  it.  This  was  his  first  step  towards  the  life  to 
which  later  all  his  wishes  and  interests  were  devoted. 

It  would  seem,  however,  if  there  is  any  possible  truth  in 
the  idea,  that  the  Sicilian  endowments  were  a  sort  of  ransom 
for  himself  and  the  personal  sacrifice  of  the  world  which 
his  growing  fervour  demanded  of  him,  that  the  expedient 
was  not  a  successful  one.  He  did  not  resist  the  grace  of 
conversion  very  long ;  but  it  is  curious  to  find  him,  so  long 
after3  adopting  the  same  expedient  as  that  which  had  formed 
a  middle  ground  for  his  predecessors  in  an  earlier  age,  by 
converting  his  father's  house  into  a  convent.  St.  Benedict,, 
the  first  of  monastic  founders  in  Europe,. was  scarcely  born 
when  Marcella  first  called  about  her  the  few  pious  maidens 
and  widows  who  formed  her  permanent  household  in  Rome ; 
but  by  the  time  of  Gregory,  the  order  of  Benedict  had 
become  one  of  the  great  facts  and  institutions  of  the  time 
—  and  his  villa  was  soon  filled  with  a  regular  community 
of  black-robed  monks  with  their  abbot  and  other  leaders. 
Remaining  in  the  beloved  shelter  of  his  natural  home,  he 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  127 

became  a  member  of  this  community.  He  did  not  even 
retain,  as  Marcella  did,  the  government  of  the  new  estab- 
lishment in  his  own  hand,  but  served  humbly,  holding  no 
office,  as  an  undistinguished  brother.  It  was  not  without 
difficulty  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to  this  step.  In  the 
letter  to  Leander  which  forms  the  dedication  of  his  com- 
mentary on  Job,  he  gives  a  brief  and  vague  account  of  his 
own  hesitations  and  doubts.  The  love  of  things  eternal,  he 
says,  had  taken  hold  upon  his  mind  while  yet  custom  had 
so  wound  its  chains  round  him  that  he  could  not  make  up 
his  mind  to  change  his  outward  garb.  But.  the  new  in- 
fluence was  so  strong  that  he  engaged  in  the  service  of  the 
world  as  it  were  in  semblance  only,  his  purpose  and  inclina- 
tion turning  more  and  more  towards  the  cloister.  When 
the  current  of  feeling  and  spiritual  excitement  carried  him 
beyond  all  these  reluctances  and  hesitations,  and  he  at  last 
"  sought  the  haven  of  the  monastery,"  having,  as  he  says, 
"left  all  that  is  of  the  world  as  at  that  time  I  vainly  be- 
lieved, I  came  out  naked  from  the  shipwreck  of  human  life." 
His  intention  at  this  crisis  was  evidently  not  that  of  fitting 
himself  for  the  great  offices  of  the  Church  or  entering  what 
was  indeed  one  of  the  greatest  professions  of  the  time,  the 
priesthood,  the  one  which,  next  to  that  of  the  soldier,  was 
most  apt  for  advancement.  Like  Jerome,  Gregory's  inclina- 
tion was  to  be  a  monk  and  not  a  priest,  and  he  expressly 
tells  us  that  "the  virtue  of  obedience  was  set  against  my 
own  inclination  to  make  me  take  the  charge  of  ministering 
at  the  holy  altar,"  which  he  was  obliged  to  accept  upon  the 
ground  that  the  Church  had  need  of  him.  This  disinclina- 
tion to  enter  the  priesthood  is  all  the  more  remarkable  that 
Gregory  was  evidently  a  preacher  born,  and  seems  early  in 
his  monastic  life  to  have  developed  this  gift.  The  elucida- 
tion of  so  difficult  and  mysterious  a  book  as  that  of  Job  was 
asked  of  him  by  his  brethren  at  an  early  period  of  his 
career. 


128  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

We  have  no  guidance  of  dates  to  enable  us  to  know  how 
long  a  time  he  passed  in  the  monastery,  which  was  dedicated 
to  St.  Andrew,  after  he  turned  it  from  a  palace-villa  into 
monastic  cells  and  cloisters ;  but  the  legend  which  comes  in 
more  or  less  to  every  saintly  life  here  affords  us  one  or  two 
delightful  vignettes  to  illustrate  the  history.  His  mother 
Silvia  in  her  nun's  cell,  surrounded  by  its  little  garden,  at 
S.  Sabba,  sent  daily,  the  story  goes  —  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  its  truth  —  a  mess  of  vegetables  to  her  son  upon 
the  Coelian,  prepared  by  her  own  tender  hands.  One  can 
imagine  some  shockheaded  Roman  of  a  lay  brother,  old 
servant  or  retainer,  tramping  alone,  day  by  day,  over  the 
stony  ways,  across  the  deep  valley  between  the  two  hills, 
with  the  simple  dish  tied  in  its  napkin,  which  perhaps  had 
some  savour  of  home  and  childhood,  the  mother's  provision 
for  her  boy. 

Another  story,  less  original,  relates  how  having  sold  every- 
thing and  given  all  his  money  to  the  poor,  Gregory  was 
beset  by  a  shipwrecked  sailor  who  came  t6  him  again  and 
again  in  the  cell  where  he  sat  writing,  and  to  whom  at  last, 
having  no  money,  he  gave  the  only  thing  of  value  he  had 
left,  a  silver  dish  given  him  by  his  mother  —  perhaps  the 
very  bowl  in  which  day  by  day  his  dinner  of  herbs  was  sent 
to  him.  Needless  to  say  that  the  mysterious  sailor  assumed 
afterwards  a  more  glorious  form,  and  Gregory  found  that 
he  had  given  alms,  if  not  as  in  most  such  cases  to  his  Mas- 
ter, at  least  to  a  ministering  angel.  Then,  too,  in  those 
quiet  years  arose  other  visionary  legends,  that  of  the  dove 
who  sat  on  his  shoulder  and  breathed  inspiration  into  his 
ear,  and-  the  Madonna  who  spoke  to  him  as  he  sat  musing 
—  a  Madonna  painted  by  no  mortal  hands,  but  coming  into 
being  on  the  wall  —  a  sweet  and  consoling  vision  in  the 
light  that  never  was  by  sea  or  shore.  These  are  the  neces- 
sary adjuncts  of  every  saintly  legend.  It  is  not  needful 
that  we  should  insist  upon  them  ;  but  they  help  us  to  realise 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  129 

the  aspect  of  the  young  Eoman  who  had,  at  last,  after  some 
struggles  attained  that  "  grace  of  conversion  "  which  makes 
the  renunciation  of  every  worldly  advantage  possible,  but 
who  still  dwelt  peacefully  in  his  own  house,  and  occupied 
the  cell  he  had  chosen  for  himself  with  something  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  master  of  the  house,  although  no 
superiority  of  rank  among  his  brethren,  finding  no  doubt  a 
delightful  new  spring  of  life  in  the  composition  of  his  homi- 
lies, and  the  sense  that  a  higher  sphere  of  work  and  activity 
was  thus  opening  before  his  feet. 

,The  cell  of  St.  Gregory  and  his  marble  chair  in  which  he 
worked  and  rested,  are  still  shown  for  the  admiration  of  the 
faithful  on  the  right  side  of  the  church  which  bears  his 
name :  but  neither  church  nor  convent  are  of  his  building, 
though  they  occupy  the  sites  consecrated  by  .him  to  the 
service  of  God.  "  Here  was  the  house  of  Gregory,  converted 
by  him  into  a  monastery,"  says  the  inscription  on  the  portico. 
And  in  one  spot  at  least  the  steps  of  the  Roman  gentleman 
turned  monk,  may  still  be  traced  in  the  evening  freshness 
and  among  the  morning  dews  —  in  the  garden,  from  which 
the  neighbouring  summits  of  the  sun-crowned  city  still  rise 
before  the  rapt  spectator  with  all  their  memories  and  their 
ruins.  There  were  greater  ruins  in  Gregory's  day,  ruins 
still  smoking  from  siege  and  fire,  roofless  palaces  telling 
their  stern  lesson  of  the  end  of  one  great  period  of  empire, 
of  a  mighty  power  overthrown,  and  new  rude  overwhelming 
forces,  upon  which  no  man  could  calculate,  come  in,  in 
anarchy  and  bloodshed,  to  turn  the  world  upside  down. 
We  all  make  our  own  somewhat  conventional  comparisons 
and  reflections  upon  that  striking  scene,  and  moralise  at  our 
leisure  over  the  Pagan  and  the  Christian,  and  all  that  has  been 
signified  to  the  world  in  such  an  overthrow  and  transforma- 
tion. But  Gregory's  thoughts  as  he  paced  his  garden  ter- 
race must  have  been  very  different  from  ours.  He  no 
doubt  felt  a  thrill  of  pleasure  as  he  looked  at  the  desecrated 


130  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

places  over  which  Goth  and  Vandal  had  raged,  in  the 
thought  that  the  peaceful  roof  of  his  father's  house  was 
safe,  a  refuge  for  the  chosen  souls  who  had  abjured  the 
world;  and  self -withdrawn  from  all  those  conflicts  and 
miseries,  mused  in  his  heart  over  the  new  world  which  was 
dawning,  under  the  tender  care  of  the  Church  and  the 
ministration  of  those  monks  denuded  of  all  things,  whose 
sole  inspiration  was  to  be  the  love  of  God  and  the  succour 
of  the  human  race.  The  world  could  not  go  on  did  not 
every  new  economy  form  to  itself  some  such  glorious  dream 
of  the  final  triumph  of  the  good,  the  noble,  and  the  true. 
Great  Eome  lay  wrecked  and  ended  in  the  sight  of  the 
patrician  monk  who  had  schooled  himself  out  of  all  the  bit- 
terness of  the  vanquished  in  that  new  hope  and  new  life  of 
the  cloister.  Did  he  already  see  his  brethren,  the  messengers 
of  the  faith,  going  forth  to  all  the  darkest  corners  of  the 
unknown  world  with  their  gospel,  and  new  skies  and  new 
lands  turning  to  meet  the  shining  of  the  new  day  ?  —  or  with 
thoughts  more  profound  in  awe,  more  sacred  in  mysterious 
joy,  did  he  hold  his  breath  to  think  what  all  these  ragings 
of  nations  and  overturning  of  powers  might  portend,  the 
glorious  era  when  all  misery  should  be  ended,  and  the  Lord 
come  in  the  clouds  to  judge  the  earth  and  vindicate  His 
people  ?  The  monks  have  failed  like  the  emperors  since 
Gregory's  day  —  the  Popes  have  found  no  more  certain  solu- 
tion for  the  problems  of  earth  than  did  the  philosophers. 
But  it  is  perhaps  more  natural  on  one  of  those  seven  hills 
of  Rome,  to  think  of  that  last  great  event  -which  shall  fulfil 
all  things,  and  finally  unravel  this  mortal  coil  of  human 
affairs,  than  it  is  on  any  other  spot  of  earth  except  the 
mystic  Mount  of  the  Olives,  from  which  rose  the  last  visible 
steps  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

We  have  no  knowledge  how  long  this  quiet  life  lasted,  or 
if  he  was  long  left  to  write  his  sermons  in  his  cell,  and  muse 
in  his  garden,  and  receive  his  spare  meal  from  his  mother's 


i.]  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  131 

hands,  the  mess  of  lentils,  or  beans,  or  artichokes,  which 
would  form  his  only  fare ;  but  it  is  evident  that  even, in  this 
seclusion  he  had  given  assurance  of  a  man  to  the  authorities 
of  the  Church  and  was  looked  upon  as  one  of  its  hopes.  He 
had  no  desire,  as  has  been  said,  to  become  a  priest,  but  rather 
felt  an  almost  superstitious  fear  of  being  called  upon  to 
minister  at  the  holy  altar,  a  sentiment  very  usual  in  those 
days  among  men  of  the  world  converted  to  a  love  of  the  life 
of  prayer  and  penitence,  but  not  of  the  sacerdotal  charge  or 
profession.  It  is  curious  indeed  how  little  the  sacramental 
idea  had  then  developed  in  the  minds  of  the  most  pious. 
The  rule  of  Benedict  required  the  performance  of  the  mass 
only  on  Sundays  and  festivals,  and  there  is  scarcely  any 
mention  of  the  more  solemn  offices  of  worship  in  the  age  of 
Jerome,  who  was  a  priest  in  spite  of  himself,  and  never  said 
but  one  mass  in  his  life.  It  was  to  "  live  the  life,"  as  in  the 
case  of  a  recent  remarkable  convert  from  earthly  occupations 
to  mystical  religionism,  that  the  late  praetor,  sick  of  worldly 
things,  devoted  himself :  and  not  to  enter  into  a  new  caste, 
against  which  the  tradition  that  discredits  all  priesthoods 
and  the  unelevated  character  of  many  of  its  members,  has 
always  kept  up  a  prejudice,  which  exists  now  as  it  existed 
then. 

But  Gregory  could  not  struggle  against  the  fiat  of  his 
ecclesiastical  superiors,  and  was  almost  compelled  to  receive 
the  first  orders.  After  much  toiling  and  sifting  of  evidence 
the  ever  careful  Bollandists  have  concluded  that  this  event 
happened  in  578  or  579  —  while  Baronius,  perhaps  less  big- 
oted in  his  accuracy,  fixes  it  in  583.  Nor  was  it  without 
a  distinct  purpose  that  this  step  was  taken ;  there  was  more 
to  do  in  the  world  for  this  man  than  to  preach  homilies  and 
expound  Scripture  in  the  little  Eoman  churches.  Some  one 
was  wanted  to  represent  Pope  Benedict  the  First  in  Constan- 
tinople, some  one  who  knew  the  world  and  would  not  fear 
the  face  of  any  emperor ;  and  it  was  evidently  to  enable  him 


132  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  hold  the  post  of  Apocrisarius  or  Nuncio,  that  Gregory 
was  hastily  invested  with  deacon's  orders,  and  received  the 
position  later  known  as  that  of  a  Cardinal  deacon.  It  is  a 
little  premature,  and  harmonises  ill  with  the  other  features 
of  the  man,  to  describe  him  as  a  true  mediaeval  Nuncio,  with 
all  the  subtle  powers  and  arrogant  assumptions  of  the  Rome 
of  the  middle  ages.  This  however  is  Gibbon's  description 
of  him,  a  bold  anachronism,  antedating  by  several  ages  the 
pretensions  which  had  by  no  means  come  to  any  such  devel- 
opment in  the  sixth  century.  He  describes  the  Apocrisarius 
of  Pope  Benedict  as  one  "  who  boldly  assumed  in  the  name 
of  St.  Peter  a  tone  of  independent  dignity  which  would 
have  been  criminal  and  dangerous  in  the  most  illustrious 
layman  of  the  empire." 

There  is  little  doubt  that  Gregory  would  be  an  original 
and  remarkable  figure  among  the  sycophants  of  the  impe- 
rial court,  where  the  vices  of  the  East  mingled  with  those 
of  the  West,  and  everything  was  venal,  corrupt,  and  debased. 
Gregory  was  the  representative  of  a  growing  power,  full  of 
life  and  the  prospects  of  a  boundless  future.  There  was 
neither  popedom  nor  theories  of  universal  primacy  as  yet, 
and  he  was  confronted  at  Constantinople  by  ecclesiastical 
functionaries  of  as  high  pretensions  as  any  he  could  put 
forth ;  but  yet  the  Bishop  of  Eome  had  a  unique  position, 
and  the  care  of  the  interests  of  the  entire  Western  Church 
was  not  to  be  held  otherwise  than  with  dignity  and  a  bold 
front  whoever  should  oppose. 

There  was  however  another  side  to  the  life  of  the 
Nuncio  which  is  worthy  of  note  and  very  characteristic 
of  the  man.  He  had  been  accompanied  on  his  mission  by 
a  little  train  of  monks;  for  these  coenobites  were  nothing 
if  not  social,  and  their  solitude  was  always  tempered  by 
the  proverbial  companion  to  whom  they  could  say  how  de- 
lightful it  was  to  be  alone.  This  little  private  circle 
formed  a  home  for  the  representative  of  St.  Peter,  to 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT. 


133 


which  he  retired  with  delight  from  the  wearisome  audi- 
ences, intrigues,  and  ceremonies  of  the  imperial  court. 
Another  envoy,  Leander,  a  noble  Spaniard,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Seville,  and  one  of  the  favourite  saints  of  Spain, 
was  in  Constantinople  at  the  same  time,  charged  with  some 
high  mission  from  Rome  "  touching  the  faith  of  the  Visi- 
goths,'7 whose  conversion  from  Arianism  was  chiefly  the 
work  of  this  apostolic  labourer.  And  he  too  found  refuge 


VILLA  DE'   MEDICI. 

in  the  home  of  Gregory  among  the  friends  there  gathered 
together,  probably  bringing  with  him  his  own  little  retinue 
in  the  same  Benedictine  habit.  "  To  their  society  I  fled/' 
says  Gregory,  "as  to  the  bosom  of  the  nearest  port  from 
the  rolling  swell  and  waves  of  earthly  occupation;  and 
though  that  office  which  withdrew  me  from  the  monastery 
had  with  the  point  of  its  employments  stabbed  to  death 
my  former  tranquillity  of  life,  yet  in  their  society  I  was 
reanimated."  They  read  and  prayed  together,  keeping  up 


134  THE  MAKERS  OP  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  beloved  punctilios  of  the  monastic  rule,  the  brethren 
with  uninterrupted  attention,  the  Nuncio  and  the  Bishop  as 
much  as  was  possible  to  them  in  the  intervals  of  their 
public  work.  And  in  the  cool  atrio  of  some  Eastern  palace, 
with  the  tinkling  fountain  in  the  midst  and  the  marble 
benches  round,  the  little  company  with  one  breath  besought 
their  superior  to  exercise  for  them  those  gifts  of  exposition 
and  elucidation  of  which  he  had  already  proved  himself 
a  master.  "  It  was  then  that  it  seemed  good  to  those 
brethren,  you  too  adding  your  influence  as  you  will  remem- 
ber, to  oblige  me  by  the  importunity  of  their  requests  to 
set  forth  the  book  of  the  blessed  Job  —  and  so  far  as  the 
Truth  should  inspire  me,  to  lay  open  to  them  these  mys- 
teries." We  cannot  but  think  it  was  a  curious  choice  for 
the  brethren  to  make  in  the  midst  of  that  strange  glitter- 
ing world  of  Constantinople,  where  the  ecclesiastical  news 
would  all  be  of  persecuting  Arians  and  perverse  Eastern 
bishops,  and  where  all  kinds  of  subtle  heresies,  both  doc- 
trinal and  personal,  were  in  the  air,  fine  hair-splitting  argu- 
ments as  to  how  much  or  how  little  of  common  humanity 
was  in  the  sacred  person  of  our  Lord,  as  well  as  questions 
as  to  the  precise  day  on  which  to  keep  Easter  and  other 
regulations  of  equal  importance.  But  to  none  of  these 
matters  did  the  monks  in  exile  turn  their  minds.  "  They 
made  this  too  an  additional  burden  which  their  petition 
laid  upon  me,  that  I  would  not  only  unravel  the  words  of 
the  history  in  allegorical  senses,  but  that  I  would  go  on  to 
give  to  the  allegorical  sense  the  turn  of  a  moral  exercise : 
with  the  addition  of  something  yet  harder,  that  I  would 
fortify  the  different  meanings  with  analogous  passages,  and 
that  these,  should  they  chance  to  be  involved,  should  be 
disentangled  by  the  aid  of  additional  explanation.'7 

This  abstruse  piece  of  work  was  the  recreation  with  which 
his  brethren  supplied  the  active  mind  of  Gregory  in  the 
midst  of  his  public  employments  and  all  the  distractions  of 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  135 

the  imperial  court.  It  need  not  be  said  that  he  did  not  ap- 
proach the  subject  critically  or  with  any  of  the  lights  of 
that  late  learning  which  has  so  much  increased  the  difficulty 
of  approaching  any  subject  with  simplicity.  It  is  not  sup- 
posed even  that  he  had  any  knowledge  of  the  original,  or 
indeed  any  learning  at  all.  The  Nuncio  and  his  monks 
were  not  disturbed  by  questions  about  that  wonderful  scene 
in  which  Satan  stands  before  God.  They  accepted  it  with 
a  calm  which  is  as  little  concerned  by  its  poetic  grandeur  as 
troubled  by  its  strange  suggestions.  That  extraordinary  rev- 
elation of  an  antique  world,  so  wonderfully  removed  from 
us,  beyond  all  reach  of  history,  was  to  them  the  simplest 
preface  to  a  record  of  spiritual  experience,  full  of  instruction 
to  themselves,  lessons  of  patience  and  faith,  and  all  the  con- 
solations of  God.  Nothing  is  more  likely  than  that  there 
were  among  the  men  who  clustered  about  Gregory  in  his 
Eastern  palace,  some  who  like  Job  had  seen  everything  that 
was  dear  to  them  perish,  and  had  buried  health  and  wealth 
and  home  and  children  under  the  ashes  of  sacked  and  burn- 
ing Rome.  We  might  imagine  even  that  this  was  the  rea- 
son why  that  mysterious  poem  with  all  its  wonderful  dis- 
coursings  was  chosen  as  the  subject  to  be  treated  in  so  select 
an  assembly.  Few  of  these  men  if  any  would  be  peaceful 
sons  of  the  cloister,  bred  up  in  the  stillness  of  conventual 
life;  neither  is  it  likely  that  they  would  be  scholars  or 
divines.  They  were  men  rescued  from  a  world  more  than 
usually  terrible  and  destructive  of  individual  happiness, 
saddened  by  loss,  humiliated  in  every  sensation  either  of 
family  or  national  pride,  the  fallen  sons  of  a  great  race, 
trying  above  all  things  to  console  themselves  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  every  human  hope.  And  the  exposition  of  Job  is 
written  with  this  end,  with  strange  new  glosses  and  interpre- 
tations from  that  New  Testament  which  was  not  yet  six 
hundred  years  old,  and  little  account  of  any  difference  be- 
tween :  for  were  not  both  Holy  Scripture  intended  for  the 


136  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

consolation  and  instruction  of  mankind  ?  and  was  not  this 
the  supreme  object  of  all  —  not  to  raise  antiquarian  questions 
or  exercise  the  mind  on  metaphysical  arguments,  but  to 
gather  a  little  balsam  for  the  wounds,  and  form  a  little  prop 
for  the  weakness  of  labouring  and  heavily  laden  men  ? 
Moralia  :  "The  Book  of  the  Morals  of  St.  Gregory  the 
Pope  "  is  the  title  of  the  book  —  a  collection  of  lessons  how 
to  endure  and  suffer,  how  to  hope  and  believe,  how  to  stand 
fast  —  in  the  certainty  of  a  faith  that  overcomes  all  things, 
in  the  very  face  of  fate. 

"  Whosoever  is  speaking  concerning  God,"  says  Gregory, 
"  must  be  careful  to  search  out  thoroughly  whatsoever  fur- 
nishes moral  instruction  to  his  hearers  ;  and  should  account 
that  to  be  the  right  method  of  ordering  his  discourse  which 
permits  him  when  opportunity  for  edification  requires  it,  to 
turn  aside  for  a  useful  purpose  from  that  which  he  had  be- 
gun to  speak  of.  He  that  treats  of  sacred  writ  should  fol- 
low the  way  of  a  river :  for  if  a  river  as  it  flows  along  its 
channel  meets  with  open  valleys  on  its  side,  into  these  it 
immediately  turns  the  course  of  its  current,  and  when  they  are 
copiously  supplied  presently  it  pours  itself  back  into  its  bed. 
Thus  unquestionably  should  it  be  with  every  one  that  treats 
the  Divine  word,  so  that  if  discussing  any  subject  he  chances 
to  find  at  hand  any  occasion  of  seasonable  edification  he 
should  as  it  were  force  the  streams  of  discourse  towards  the 
adjacent  valley,  and  when  he  has  poured  forth  enough  upon 
its  level  of  instruction  fall  back  into  the  channel  of  discourse 
which  he  had  proposed'  to  himself.'7 

We  do  not  know  what  the  reader  may  think  of  Gregory's 
geography;  but  certainly  he  carries  out  his  discursive 
views  to  the  full,  and  fills  every  valley  he  may  chance  to 
come  to  in  his  flowing,  with  pools  and  streams  —  no  doubt 
waters  of  refreshing  to  the  souls  that  surrounded  him,  ever 
eager  to  press  him  on.  A  commentary  thus  called  forth 
by  the  necessities  of  the  moment,  spoken  in  the  first  place 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  137 

to  anxious  listeners  who  had  with  much  pressure  demanded 
it,  and  who  nodded  their  heads  over  it  with  mingled  appro- 
bation and  criticism  as  half  their  own,  has  a  distinctive 
character  peculiar  to  itself,  and  requires  little  aid  from 
science  or  learning.  A  large  portion  of  it1  was  written  as 
it  fell  from  his  lips,  without  revision  Gregory  informs  us, 
"  because  the  brethren  drawing  me  away  to  other  things, 
would  not  leave  time  to  correct  this  with  any  great  degree 
of  exactness." 

A  gleam  of  humour  conies  across  the  picture  as  he 
describes  his  position  among  this  band  of  dependent  and 
applauding  followers,  who  yet  were  more  or  less  the  masters 
of  his  leisure  and  private  life.  "Pursuing  my  object  of 
obeying  their  instructions,  ivhich  I  must  confess  were  suffi- 
ciently numerous,  I  have  completed  this  work,"  he  says. 
The  humour  is  a  little  rueful,  the  situation  full  of  force  and 
nature.  The  little  group  of  lesser  men  would  no  doubt 
have  fully  acknowledged  themselves  inferior  to  the  eloquent 
brother,  their  founder,  their  instructor,  so  much  greater  a 
man  in  every  way  than  themselves :  but  yet  not  able  to  get 
on  without  the  hints  of  Brother  John  or  Brother  Paul, 
helped  so  much  by  that  fine  suggestion  of  the  Cellarius, 
and  the  questions  and  sagacious  remarks  of  the  others. 
The  instructions  of  the  brethren!  who  does  not  recognise 
the  scene,  the  nods  aside,  the  objections,  the  volunteered 
information  and  directions  how  to  say  this  or  that,  which 
he  knew  so  much  better  how  to  say  than  any  of  them! 
while  he  sat  listening  all  the  time,  attending  to  every 
criticism,  taking  up  a  hint  here  and  there,  with  that 
curious  alchemy  of  good  humour  and  genius,  turning  the 
dull  remarks  to  profit,  yet  always  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye  at  those  advices  "  sufficiently  numerous  "  which  aimed 
at  teaching  him  how  to  teach  them,  a  position  which  many 
an  ecclesiastic  and  many  an  orator  must  have  realised  since 
then.  Gregory  reveals  his  consciousness  of  the  state  of 


138  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

affairs  quite  involuntarily,  nothing  being  further  from  his 
mind  than  to  betray  to  his  reverend  and  saintly  brother 
anything  so  human  and  faulty  as  a  smile;  and  it  is  clear 
that  he  took  the  animadversions  in  good  part  with  as  much 
good  nature  as  humour.  To  make  out  the  features  of  the 
same  man  in  Gibbon's  picture  of  an  arrogant  priest  assum- 
ing more  than  any  layman  durst  assume,  is  very  difficult. 
The  historian  evidently  made  his  study  from  models  a  few 
hundred  years  further  down  in  the  record. 

Gregory  seems  to  have  held  the  place  of  Apocrisarius 
twice  under  two  different  Popes  —  Benedict  I.  and  Pelagius 
II. ;  but  whether  he  returned  to  Rome  between  the  two  is 
not  clear.  One  part  of  his  commission  from  Pelagius  was 
to  secure  help  from  the  Emperor  against  the  Lombards  who 
were  threatening  Rome.  The  Pope's  letter  with  its  lament- 
able account  of  the  undefended  and  helpless  condition  of 
the  city,  and  the  urgency  with  which  he  entreats  his  repre- 
sentative to  support  the  pleading  of  a  special  envoy  sent 
for  that  purpose,  is  interesting.  It  is  sent  to  Gregory  by 
the  hands  of  a  certain  Sebastian,  "our  brother  and  co- 
adjutor, "  who  has  been  in  Ravenna  with  the  general  Decius, 
and  therefore  is  able  to  describe  at  first  hand  the  terrible 
state  of  affairs  to  the  Emperor.  "Such  misfortunes  and 
tribulations,"  says  the  Pope,  "have  been  inflicted  upon  us 
by  the  perfidy  of  the  Lombards  contrary  to  their  own  oath 
as  no  one  could  describe.  Therefore  speak  and  act  so  as  to 
relieve  us  speedily  in  our  danger.  For  the  state  is  so 
hemmed  in,  that  unless  God  put  it  into  the  heart  of  our 
most  pious  prince  to  show  pity  to  his  servants,  and  to 
vouchsafe  us  a  grant  of  money,  and  a  commander  and 
leader,  we  are  left  in  the  last  extremity,  all  the  districts 
round  Rome  being  defenceless,  and  the  Exarch  unable  to 
do  anything  to  help  us.  Therefore  may  God  persuade  the 
Emperor  to  come  quickly  to  our  aid  before  the  armies  of 
that  most  accursed  race  have  overrun  our  lands." 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  139 

What  a  strange  overturn  of  all  things  is  apparent  when 
such  a  piteous  appeal  is  conveyed  to  the  Eastern  empire 
already  beginning  to  totter,  from  what  was  once  imperial 
and  triumphant  Rome ! 

It  was  in  586,  four  years  before  the  end  of  the  life  of 
Pelagius,  that  Gregory  returned  home.  The  abbot  of  his 
convent,  Maximianus,  had  been  promoted  to  the  see  of 
Syracuse,  though  whether  for  independent  reasons  or  to 
make  room  for  Gregory  in  that  congenial  position  we  are 
not  informed;  and  the  Nuncio  on  his  return  succeeded 
naturally  to  the  vacant  place.  If  it  was  now  or  at  an 
earlier  period  that  he  bestowed  all  his  robes,  jewels,  etc., 
on  the  convent  it  is  difficult  to  decide,  for  there  seems 
always  to  have  been  some  reserve  of  gifts  to  come  out  on  a 
later  occasion,  after  we  have  heard  of  an  apparent  sacrifice 
of  all  things  for  the  endowment  of  one  charity  or  another. 
At  all  events  Gregory's  charities  were  endless  and  con- 
tinued as  long  as  he  lived. 

No  retirement  within  the  shadow  of  the  convent  was 
however  possible  now  for  the  man  who  had  taken  so  con- 
spicuous a  position  in  public  life.  He  was  appointed  secre- 
tary to  the  Pope,  combining  that  office  with  the  duties  of 
head  of  his  convent,  and  would  appear  besides  to  have  been 
the  most  popular  preacher  in  Rome,  followed  from  one 
church  to  another  by  admiring  crowds,  and  moving  the 
people  with  all  the  force  of  that  religious  oratory  which  is 
more  powerful  than  any  other  description  of  eloquence: 
though  to  tell  the  truth  we  find  but  little  trace  of  this 
irresistible  force  in  his  discourses  as  they  have  come  down 
to  us.  Popular  as  he  was  he  does  not  seem  to  have  had 
any  special  reputation  either  for  learning  or  for  literary 
style. 

One  of  the  best  known  of  historical  anecdotes  is  the  story 
of  Gregory's  encounter  with  the  group  of  English  children 
brought  to  Eome  as  slaves,  whom  he  saw  accidentally,  as  we 


140  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

say,  in  one  of  his  walks.  It  belongs  in  all  probability  to 
this  period  of  his  life,  and  no  doubt  formed  an  episode  in 
his  daily  progress  from  St.  Andrew's  on  its  hill  to  the 
palace  of  the  Bishop  of  Eome  which  was  then  attached  to 
the  great  church  of  the  Lateran  gate.  In  this  early  home 
of  the  head  of  the  Koman  hierarchy  there  would  no  doubt 
be  accommodation  for  pilgrims  and  strangers,  in  addition 
to  the  spare  court  of  the  primitive  Pope,  but  probably 
littb  anticipation  of  the  splendours  of  the  Vatican,  not  yet 
dreamed  of.  Gregory  was  pursuing  his  musing  way,  a 
genial  figure  full  of  cheerful  observation  and  interest  in  all 
around  him,  when  he  was  suddenly  attracted  as  he  crossed 
some  street  or  square,  amid  the  crowd  of  dark  heads  and 
swarthy  faces  by  a  group,  unlike  the  rest,  of  fair  Saxon 
boys,  long-limbed  and  slender,  with  their  rose  tints  and 
golden  locks.  The  great  ecclesiastic  appears  to  us  here  all 
at  once  in  a  new  light,  after  all  we  have  known  of  him 
among  his  monastic  brethren.  He  would  seem  to  have 
been  one  of  those  inveterate  punsters  who  abound  among 
ecclesiastics,  as  well  as  a  tender-hearted  man  full  of  fatherly 
instincts.  He  stopped  to  look  at  the  poor  children  so  unlike 
anything  he  knew.  Who  were  they?  Angles.  3STay,  more 
like  angels,  he  said  in  his  kind  tones,  with  no  doubt  a  smile 
in  return  for  the  wondering  looks  suddenly  raised  upon 
him.  And  their  country?  Deiri.  Ah,  a  happy  sign!  de 
ira  eruti,  destined  to  rise  out  of  wrath  into  blessedness. 
And  their  king?  the  boys  themselves  might  by  this  time 
be  moved  to  answer  the  kind  monk,  who  looked  at  them 
so  tenderly.  Ella  —  Alle,  as  it  is  reported  in  the  Latin, 
softening  the  narrower  vowel.  And  was  it  still  all  heathen 
that  distant  land,  and  unknown  rude  monarch,  and  the 
parents  of  these  angelic  children?  Then  might  it  soon  be, 
good  Lord,  that  Allelujah  should  sound  wherever  the  bar- 
barous Alle  reigned !  Perhaps  he  smiled  at  his  own  play 
upon  words,  as  punsters  are  apt  to  do,  as  he  strolled  away, 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  141 

not  we  may  be  sure  without  a  touch  of  benediction  upon 
the  shining  tawny  heads  of  the  little  Saxon  lions.  But 
smiling  was  not  all  it  came  to.  The  thought  dwelt  with 
him  as  he  pursued  his  way,  by  the  great  round  of  the  half- 
ruined  Colosseum,  more  ruinous  probably  then  than  now, 
and  down  the  long  street  to  the  Latin  gate,  where  Pelagius 
and  all  the  work  of  his  secretaryship  awaited  him.  The 
Pope  was  old  and  wanted  cheering,  especially  in  those 
dark  days  when  the  invader  so  often  raged  without,  and 
Tiber  was  slowly  swelling  within,  muttering  wrath  and 
disaster;  while  no  force  existed,  to  be  brought  against 
one  enemy  or  another  but  the  prayers  of  a  few  old  men. 
Gregory  told  the  story  of  his  encounter,  perhaps  making 
the  old  Pope  laugh  at  the  wit  so  tempered  with  devotion, 
before  he  put  forth  his  plea  for  a  band  of  missionaries  to 
be  sent  to  those  unknown  regions  to  convert  that  beautiful 
and  wonderful  fair-haired  race.  Pelagius  was  very  willing 
to  give  his  consent;  but  where  were  men  to  be  found  to 
risk  themselves  and  their  lives  on  such  a  distant  expedition 
among  the  savages  of  that  unknown  island?  When  it  was 
found  that  nobody  would  undertake  such  a  perilous  mission, 
Gregory,  who  would  naturally  have  become  more  deter- 
mined in  respect  to  it  after  every  repulse,  offered  himself; 
and  somehow  managed  to  extort  a  consent  from  the  Pope, 
of  which  he  instantly  took  advantage,  setting  out  at  once 
with  a  band  of  faithful  brethren,  among  whom  no  doubt 
must  have  been  some  of  those  who  had  accompanied  him 
when  he  was  Nuncio  into  scenes  so  different,  and  pressed 
him  on  with  their  advice  and  criticism  while  he  opened  to 
them  the  mysteries  of  Scripture.  They  might  be  tyrannical 
in  their  suggestions,  but  no  doubt  the  impulse  of  the  apos- 
tles—  "let  us  die  with  him"  —  was  strong  in  their  hearts. 
No  sooner  was  it  known,  however,  in  Rome  that  Gregory 
had  left  the  city  on  so  distant  and  perilous  a  mission  than 
the  people  rose  in  a  sudden  tumult.  They  rushed  together 


142  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

from  all  the  quarters  of  the  city  in  excited  bands  towards 
the  Lateran,  surrounding  the  Pope  with  angry  cries  and 
protests,  demanding  the  recall  of  the  preacher,  whose  elo- 
quence as  well  as  his  great  benefactions  to  the  poor  had 
made  him  to  the  masses  the  foremost  figure  in  the  Church. 
The  Pope,  frightened  by  this  tumult,  yielded  to  the  demand, 
and  sent  off  messengers  in  hot  haste  to  bring  the  would-be 
missionary  back.  The  picture  which  his  biographers  afford 
us  is  less  known  than  the  previous  incidents,  yet  full  of 
character  and  picturesque  detail.  The  little  band  had  got 
three  days  on  in  their  journey  —  one  wonders  from  what 
port  they  meant  to  embark,  for  Ostia,  the  natural  way,  was 
but  a  few  hours  from  Rome  —  when  they  made  their  usual 
halt  at  noon  for  refreshment  and  rest  "in  the  fields." 
Gregory  had  seated  himself  under  the  shade  of  a  tree  with 
a  book  to  beguile  the  warm  and  lingering  hours.  And  as 
he  sat  thus  reading  with  all  the  bustle  of  the  little  encamp- 
ment round  him,  men  and  horses  in  the  outdoor  freedom 
enjoying  the  pause,  the  shade,  and  needful  food  —  a  locust 
suddenly  alighted  upon  his  page,  on  the  roll  of  parchment 
which  was  then  the  form  of  the  latest  editions.  Such  a 
visitor  usually  alights  for  a  moment  and  no  more;  but 
Gregory  was  too  gentle  a  spectator  of  all  life  to  dash  the 
insect  off,  and  it  remained  there  with  a  steadiness  and 
"  mansuetude  "  unlike  the  habits  of  the  creature.  The  good 
monk  began  to  be  interested,  to  muse  and  pun,  and  finally 
to  wonder.  "Locusta,"  he  said  to  himself,  groping  for  a 
meaning,  "loca  sta."  What  could  it  signify  but  that  in 
this  place  he  would  be  made  to  stay?  He  called  to  his 
attendants  to  make  ready  with  all  speed  and  push  on,  eager 
to  get  beyond  the  reach  of  pursuit ;  but  before  the  cumbrous 
train  could  be  got  under  way  again,  the  Pope's  messengers 
arrived  "bloody  with  spurring,  fiery  red  with  haste,"  and 
the  missionaries  were  compelled  to  return  to  Rome.  Thus 
his  first  attempt  for  the  conversion  of  England  was  to  have 


i.]  GREGORY   THE   GREAT.  143 

been   made,  could  lie   have   carried   out  his   purpose,    by 
himself. 

There  is  a  curious  story  also  related  of  Gregory  in  his 
walks  through  Rome,  the  issue  of  which,  could  an  unbe- 
lieving age  put  faith  in  it,  would  be  even  more  remarkable. 
One  day  as  he  passed  by  the  Forum  of  Trajan  —  then  no 
doubt  a  spot  more  wildly  ruinous  than  now,  though  still 
with  some  of  its  great  galleries  and  buildings  standing 
among  overthrown  monuments  and  broken  pillars  —  some 
one  told  him  the  story  of  Trajan  and  the  widow,  which 
must  have  greatly  affected  the  mediaeval  imagination  since 
Dante  has  introduced  it  in  his  great  poem.  The  prayer 
addressed  to  the  Emperor  on  his  way  to  the  wars  was  the 
same  as  that  of  the  widow  in  the  parable,  "  Avenge  me  of 
mine  adversary."  "I  will  do  so  when  I  return,"  the  Em- 
peror replied.  "But  who  will  assure  me  that  you  will  ever 
return?"  said  the  importunate  widow;  upon  which  the 
Emperor,  recognising  the  justice  of  the  objection,  stopped 
his  warlike  progress  until  he  had  executed  the  vengeance 
required,  upon  one  of  his  own  officials  (is  it  not  said  by  one 
authority  his  own  son?)  who  had  wronged  her.  Gregory 
was  as  much  impressed  by  this  tale  as  Dante.  He  went 
on  lamenting  that  such  a  man,  so  just,  so  tolerant  of  inter- 
ruption, so  ready  to  do  what  was  right,  should  be  cut  off 
from  the  Divine  mercy.  He  carried  this  regret  with  him 
all  the  way  to  the  tomb  of  the  apostles,  where  he  threw 
himself  on  his  knees  and  prayed  with  all  his  heart  that  the 
good  Trajan,  the  man  who  did  right  according  to  the  light 
that  was  in  him,  at  all  costs,  should  be  saved.  Some  ver- 
sions of  the  story  add  that  he  offered  to  bear  any  penance 
that  might  be  put  upon  him  for  his  presumption,  and  was 
ready  to  incur  any  penalty  to  secure  this  great  boon.  It 
can  never  be  put  to  proof  in  this  world  whether  Gregory's 
petition  was  heard  or  not,  but  his  monks  and  biographers 
were  sure  of  it,  and  some  of  them  allege  that  his  own  bodily 


144  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

sufferings  and  weakness  were  the  penalty  which  he  accepted 
gladly  for  the  salvation  of  that  great  soul.  The  story 
proves  at  least  the  intense  humanity  and  yearning  over  the 
unhappy,  which  was  in  his  heart.  Whether  he  played  and 
punned  in  tender  humour  with  the  objects  of  his  sympathy, 
or  so  flung  himself  in  profoundest  compassion  into  the  abyss 
of  hopelessness  with  them,  that  he  could  wish  himself  like 
Paul  accursed  for  his  brethren's  sake  —  Gregory's  being 
was  full  of  brotherly  love  and  fervent  feeling,  a  love  which 
penetrated  even  beyond  the  limits  of  visible  life. 

The  four  years  that  elapsed  between  his  return  to  his 
convent  and  his  election  to  the  Popedom  (or  to  speak  more 
justly  the  bishopric  of  Rome)  were  years  of  trouble.  In 
addition  to  the  constant  danger  of  invasion,  the  misery, 
even  when  that  was  escaped,  of  the  tales  brought  to  Rome 
by  the  fugitives  who  took  refuge  there  from  all  the  sur- 
rounding country,  in  every  aggravation  of  poverty  and 
wretchedness,  and  the  efforts  that  had  to  be  made  for  their 
succour  —  a  great  inundation  of  the  Tiber,  familiar  yet 
terrible  disaster  from  which  Rome  has  not  even  now  been 
able  to  secure  herself,  took  place  towards  the  end  of  the 
period,  followed  by  a  terrible  pestilence,  its  natural  result. 
Gregory  was  expounding  the  prophet  Ezekiel  in  one  of  the 
Roman  churches  at  the  time  of  this  visitation:  but  as  the 
plague  increased  his  sorrowful  soul  could  not  bear  any 
bondage  of  words  or  thoughts  apart,  from  the  awful  needs 
of  the  moment,  and  closing  the  book,  he  poured  forth  his 
heart  to  the  awed  and  trembling  people,  exhorting  all  to 
repent,  and  to  fling  themselves  upon  God's  mercy  that  the 
pestilence  might  be  stayed.  In  all  such  terrible  emer- 
gencies it  is  the  impulse  of  human  nature  to  take  refuge 
in  something  that  can  be*  done,  and  the  impulse  is  no  doubt 
itself  of  use  to  relieve  the  crushing  weight  of  despair, 
whatever  may  be  the  form  it  takes. 

We   clean  and  scrub  and  whitewash  in  our  day,   and 


I.] 


GREGORY  THE   GREAT 


145 


believe  in  these  ways  of  arresting  the  demons ;  but  in  old 
Rome  the  call  for  help  was  more  impressive  at  least,  and 
probably  braced  the  souls  of  the  sufferers  as  even  whitewash 
could  not  do.  The  manner  in  which  Gregory  essayed  to 
turn  the  terrible  tide  was  by  a  direct  appeal  to  Heaven. 
He  organised  a  great  simultaneous  procession  from  all  the 
quarters  of  Rome  to  meet  at  "  the  Church  of  the  Virgin  " 
—  we  are  not  informed  which  —  in  one  great  united  outcry 


^  fa'r' 


tt%a£i         '  \  ' 

"%1%^^ 

.^iAfM^    -T 


SAN  GREGORIO  MAGNO,  AND  ST.  JOHN  AND  ST.   PAUL. 

to  God  for  mercy.  The  septiform  litany,  as  it  was  called, 
was  chanted  through  the  desolate  streets  by  gradually 
approaching  lines,  the  men  married  and  unmarried,  the 
priests  and  monks  each  approaching  in  a  separate  band; 
while  proceeding  from  other  churches  came  the  women  in 
all  their  subdivisions,  the  wives,  the  widows,  the  maidens, 
the  dedicated  virgins,  Ancillse  Dei,  each  line  converging 
towards  the  centre,  each  followed  no  doubt  from  windows 
within  which  the  dying  lay  with  tears  and  echoes  of  prayers. 
Many  great  sights  there  have  been  in  old  Rome,  but  few 


146  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

could  have  been  more  melancholy  or  impressive  than  this. 
We  hear  of  no  miraculous  picture,  no  saintly  idol  as  in 
later  ceremonials,  but  only  the  seven  processions  with  their 
long-drawn  monotones  of  penitence,  the  men  by  themselves, 
the  women  by  themselves,  the  widows  in  their  mourning, 
the  veiled  nuns,  the  younger  generation,  boys  and  girls, 
most  precious  of  all.  That  Gregory  should  have  had  the 
gift  to  see,  or  believe  that  he  saw,  a  shining  angel  upon 
Hadrian's  tomb,  pausing  and  sheathing  his  sword  as  the 
long  line  of  suppliants  drew  near,  is  very  soothing  and 
human  to  think  of.  Fresh  from  his  studies  of  Ezekiel  or 
Job,  though  too  sick  at  heart  with  present  trouble  to  con- 
tinue them.,  why  should  he  have  doubted  that  the  Hearer  of 
Prayer  might  thus  grant  a  visible  sign  of  the  acceptance 
which  He  had  promised?  We  do  not  expect  such  visions 
nowadays,  nor  do  we  with  such  intense  and  united  purpose 
seek  them ;  but  the  same  legend  connects  itself  with  many 
such  periods  of  national  extremity.  So  late  as  the  Great 
Plague  of  London  a  similar  great  figure,  radiant  in  celestial 
whiteness,  was  also  reported  to  be  seen  as  the  pestilence 
abated,  sheathing,  in  the  same  imagery,  a  blazing  sword. 
The  story  of  the  septiform  litany  relates  how  here  and 
there  in  the  streets  as  they  marched  the  dead  and  dying  fell 
out  of  the  very  ranks  of  the  suppliants.  But  yet  the  angel 
sheathed  his  sword.  It  is  hard  to  recall  the  splendid  monu- 
ment of  Hadrian  with  its  gleaming  marbles  and  statues  as 
the  pilgrim  of  to-day  approaches  the  vast  but  truncated  and 
heavy  round  of  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo;  but  it  does  not 
require  so  great  an  effort  of  the  mind  to  recall  that  scene, 
when  the  great  angel  standing  out  against  the  sky  existed 
but  in  Gregory's  anxious  eyes,  and  was  reflected  through 
the  tears  of  thousands  of  despairing  spectators,  who  stood 
trembling  between  the  Omnipotence  which  could  save  in  a 
moment  and  the  terrible  Death  which  seized  and  slew  while 
they  were  looking  on.  No  human  heart  can  refuse  to  beat 


i.J  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  147 

quicker  at  such  a  spectacle  —  the  good  man  in  his  rapture 
of  love  and  earnestness  with  his  face  turned  to  that  radiant 
Roman  sky,  and  all  the  dark  lines  of  people  arrested  in 
their  march  gazing  too,  the  chant  dying  from  their  lips, 
while  the  white  angel  paused  for  a  moment  and  sheathed 
the  sword  of  judgment  over  their  heads. 

It  was  not  till  many  centuries  later,  when  every  relic  of 
the  glories  of  the  great  Emperor's  tomb  had  been  torn  from 
its  walls,  that  the  angel  in  marble,  afterwards  succeeded  by 
the  present  angel  in  bronze,  was  erected  on  the  summit  of 
the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  which  derives  from  this  incident 
its  name  —  a  name  now  laden  with  many  other  associations 
and  familiar  to  us  all. 

Pope  Pelagius  was  one  of  the  victims  of  this  great  plague ; 
and  it  is  evident  from  all  the  circumstances  recorded  that 
Gregory  was  already  the  most  prominent  figure  in  Rome, 
taking  the  chief  place,  not  only  in  such  matters  as  the 
public  penitence,  but  in  all  the  steps  necessary  to  meet  so 
great  a  calamity.  Not  only  were  his  powers  as  an  adminis- 
trator very  great,  but  he  had  the  faculty  of  getting  at  those 
sacred  hordes  of  ecclesiastical  wealth,  the  Church's  treasures 
of  gold  and  silver  plate,  which  a  secular  ruler  could  not 
have  touched.  Gregory's  own  liberality  was  the  best  of 
lessons,  and  though  he  had  already  sacrificed  so  much  he 
had  yet,  it  would  appear,  something  of  his  own  still  to 
dispose  of,  as  we  have  already  found  to  be  the  case  in  so 
many  instances,  no  doubt  rents  or  produce  of  estates  which 
could  not  be  alienated,  though  everything  they  produced 
was  freely  given  up.  Already  the  wealth  of  the  Church 
had  been  called  into  requisition  to  provide  for  the  fugitives 
who  had  taken  refuge  from  the  Lombards  in  Rome.  These 
riches,  however,  were  now  almost  exhausted  by  the  wants 
of  the  disorganised  commonwealth,  where  every  industry 
and  occupation  had  been  put  out  of  gear,  and  nothing  but 
want  and  misery,  enfeebled  bodies,  and  discouraged  hearts 


148  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

remained.  It  was  inevitable  that  at  such  a  time  Gregory 
should  be  the  one  man  to  whom  every  eye  turned  as  the 
successor  of  Pelagius.  The  clergy,  the  nobles,  and  the 
populace,  all  accustomed  to  take  a  part  in  the  choice  of 
the  bishop,  pronounced  for  him  with  one  voice.  It  is  a  kind 
of  fashion  among  the  saints  that  each  one  in  his  turn  should 
resist  and  refuse  the  honours  which  it  is  wished  to  thrust 
upon  him;  but  there  was  at  least  sufficient  reason  in 
Gregory's  case  for  resistance.  For  the  apostolical  see, 
which  was  far  from  being  a  bed  of  roses  at  any  time,  was 
at  that  period  of  distress  and  danger  one  of  the  most  onerous 
posts  in  the  world. 

Pelagius  died  in  January  590,  but  it  was  late  in  that 
year  before  his  successor  was  forced  into  the  vacant  place. 
In  the  meantime  Gregory  had  appealed  to  the  Emperor, 
begging  that  he  would  oppose  the  election  and  support  him 
in  his  resistance.  This  letter  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Prsefect  of  Kome,  who  intercepted  it,  and  wrote  in  his  own 
name  and  that  of  the  people  a  contrary  prayer,  begging 
the  Emperor  Maurice  to  sanction  and  give  authority  to 
their  choice.  It  was  only  when  the  answer  was  received 
confirming  the  election,  that  Gregory  became  aware  of 
the  trick  played  upon  him;  and  all  his  natural  aversion 
strengthened  by  this  deceitful  proceeding,  he  withdrew 
secretly  from  the  city,  hiding  himself,  it  is  said,  in  a  cave 
among  the  woods.  Whether  this  means  that  he  had  made 
his  way  to  the  hills,  and  found  this  refuge  among  the  ruins 
of  Tusculum,  or  in  some  woodland  grotto  about  Albano,  or 
that  some  of  the  herdsmen's  huts  upon  the  Campagna  amid 
the  broken  arches  of  the  aqueducts  received  and  concealed 
him,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  It  is  said  that  the  place  of  his 
retreat  was  made  known  by  a  light  from  heaven  which  made 
an  illumination  about  him  in  his  stony  refuge,  for  the  legend 
is  unsparing  in  the  breadth  of  its  effects  and  easily  appro- 
priates the  large  miracle  which  in  the  Old  Testament  attends 


i.]  ,  GREGORY  THE  GREAT.  149 

the  passage  of  a  whole  nation  to  the  service  of  an  individual, 
without  any  of  that  sense  of  proportion  which  is  to  be  found 
in  older  records.  This  light  suggests  somehow  the  wide 
breadth  of  the  Campagna  where  its  distant  glow  could  be 
seen  from  afar,  from  the  battlements  of  Rome  herself, 
rather  than  the  more  distant  hills.  And  we  must  hope  that 
this  direct  betrayal  by  Heaven  of  his  hiding-place  showed 
Gregory  that  the  appointment  against  which  he  struggled 
had  in  fact  the  sanction  of  the  higher  powers. 

He  speaks,  however,  in  many  of  his  works  of  the  great 
repugnance  he  felt  to  take  the  cares  of  such  an  office  upon 
him.  He  had  allowed  himself  to  be  ordained  a  deacon  with 
reluctance,  and  only  apparently  on  an  understanding  that 
when  the  emergency  which  called  for  his  services  was  over 
he  might  "be  permitted  to  retire  again  to  his  cloister.  His 
letter  to  Leander  already  referred  to  is  full  of  the  complaint 
that  "  when  the  ministry  of  the  altar  was  so  heavy  a  weight, 
the  further  burden  of  the  pastoral  charge  was  fastened  on 
me,  which  I  now  find  so  much  the  more  difficulty  in  bearing 
as  I  feel  myself  unequal  to  it,  and  cannot  find  consolation 
in  any  comfortable  confidence  in  myself."  To  another 
correspondent  he  remonstrates  against  the  censure  he  met 
with  for  having  endeavoured  to  escape  from  so  heavy  a 
charge.  These  hesitations  are  not  like  those  with  which 
it  is  usual  to  find  the  great  men  of  the  Church  refusing 
honours,  since  it  is  no  profession  of  humility  which  moves 
Gregory,  but  his  overwhelming  sense  of  the  difficulties  and 
danger  to  which  the  chief  pastor  of  the  Church  would 
necessarily  be  exposed.  His  idea  of  his  position  is  indeed 
very  different  from  that  of  those  who  consider  him  as  one 
of  the  first  to  conceive  the  great  plan  of  the  papacy,  and  as 
working  sedulously  and  with  intention  at  the  foundations 
of  an  institution  which  he  expected  to  last  for  hundreds  of 
years  and  to  sway  the  fortunes  of  the  world.  He  was  on 
the  contrary  fully  persuaded  that  all  the  signs  of  the  times 


150  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

foretold  instead,  the  end  of  the  world  and  final  winding  up 
of  human  history.  The  apostles  had  believed  so  before 
him,  and  every  succeeding  age  had  felt  the  catastrophe  to 
be  only  for  a  little  while  delayed.  Nation  was  rising 
against  nation  under  his  very  eyes,  earthquakes  destroying 
the  cities  of  the  earth,  and  pestilence  their  populations. 
There  had  been  signs  in  heaven  generally  reported  and 
believed,  fiery  ranks  of  combatants  meeting  in  conflict  in 
the  very  skies,  and  every  token  of  judgment  about  to  fall. 
Little  thought  was  there  in  his  mind  of  a  triumphant  and 
potent  ecclesiastical  economy  which  should  dominate  all 
things.  "  I  being  unworthy  and  weak  have  taken  upon  me 
the  care  of  the  old  and  battered  vessel,"  he  says  in  one  of 
his  epistles  written  soon  after  his  election;  "the  waves 
make  their  way  in  on  all  sides,  and  the  rotten  planks, 
shattered  by  daily  and  violent  storms,  threaten  imminent 
shipwreck."  An  old  and  battered  vessel,  it  had  borne  the 
strain  of  six  centuries  —  a  long  time  to  those  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  ages  to  come :  and  now  struggled  on  its  way 
beaten  by  winds  and  waves,  not  knowing  when  the  dread- 
ful moment  expected  by  so  many  generations  might  come, 
when  the  sun  should  be  turned  into  darkness  and  the  moon 
into  blood  —  the  only  signs  that  were  yet  wanting  of  the 
approach  of  that  great  and  terrible  day.  How  different 
were  these  anticipations  from  any  conscious  plan  of  con- 
quest or  spiritual  empire ;  and  how  much  more  fully  justified 
by  all  that  was  happening  around  that  broken,  suffering, 
poor,  breathless  and  hopeless  capital  of  the  world ! 

Yet  it  is  evident  enough  that  this  one  resolute  man,  toil- 
ing in  every  possible  way  for  the  protection  of  the  people 
round  him,  did  put  a  certain  heart  in  the  city  which  had 
come  through  so  many  convulsions.  Crowded  with  fugi- 
tives, decimated  with  pestilence,  left  for  many  months 
without  any  more  able  head  than  the  half-hearted  praetors 
and  officials  of  the  state  and  the  distant  exarch  at  Ravenna, 


i.]  GREGORY  THE  GREAT.  151 

with  all  of  whom,  according  to  Gregory's  own  witness,  the 
exaction  of  taxes  was  the  chief  object  —  a  strong  and  stead- 
fast ruler  in  the  midst  of  this  distracted  people  changed  in 
every  way  the  disposition  of  affairs.  For  one  thing  he 
seems  to  have  taken  upon  him  from  the  beginning  the  care 
and  nourishment  of  the  poor.  It  had  been  the  principle  of 
the  Church  from  her  earliest  days  that  almsgiving  was  one 
of  the  first  of  duties,  and  the  care  of  the  poor  her  inalienable 
right;  but  such  a  time  of  disaster  made  something  more 
heroic  needful  than  the  usual  doles  and  charities.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  population  of  Rome  came  upon  Gregory's 
hands  to  be  fed  and  provided  for.  Lists  of  the  destitute 
poor,  of  their  houses  and  circumstances,  were  kept  with  the 
greatest  care;  and  we  are  told  that  before  the  Pope  sat 
down  to  any  meal  the  tables  for  the  poor  outside  were  first 
supplied.  How  dreadful  to  any  philanthropist  now  this 
straightforward  and  matter-of-fact  feeding  of  the  hungry ! 
but  it  was  the  manner  of  Christianity,  most  understood  and 
approved  in  the  early  ages,  the  one  with  which  even  the 
most  enlightened  of  politicians  had  no  fault  to  find.  This 
was  the  first  idea  in  every  evangelical  soul,  but  it  was  by 
no  means  the  limit  of  Gregory's  exertions.  He  had  learned 
diplomacy  as  well  as  charity  in  the  experiences  of  his  past 
life,  and  every  resource  of  his  skill  and  knowledge  were 
needed  for  the  salvation  of  the  otherwise  hopeless  city. 
In  all  the  dignity  of  his  spiritual  office,  yet  with  all  the 
arts  of  a  statesman,  we  can  see  him  standing  as  it  were 
before  the  gates  of  Rome,  as  Horatius  stood  on  the  banks 
of  the  Tiber.  It  is  sometimes  to  Constantinople,  some- 
times to  the  host  of  the  invaders,  that  he  turns  explaining, 
arguing,  pleading  on  one  side  and  another  for  the  safety  of 
his  city  and  people.  His  letters  to  the  Emperor  and  to  the 
Empress  on  one  hand,  and  those  to  Queen  Theodolinda  on 
the  other  hand,  the  wife  of  the  invader  —  show  with  what 
persistency  and  earnestness  he  defended  "Rome  and  its 


152  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

people  who  were  his  special  charge  and  flock,  and  who  had 
neither  ruler  nor  defender  save  himself.  This  was  one  of 
his  ways  of  establishing  the  sway  of  the  papacy,  it  is  said; 
it  was  at  the  same  time,  and  primarily,  the  stepping  forth 
of  the  only  man  who  could  or  would  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  disorganised  and  trembling  host  without  leader  or 
defender.  He,  only  he,  stood  fast  to  strike  for  them,  to 
intercept  destruction  hanging  over  their  heads,  and  it  would 
be  a  curious  fact  indeed  in  human  nature  if  such  a  man 
performed  his  first  duty  for  the  sake  of  an  unformed  empire 
to  come  after  hundreds  of  years  had  passed.  He  succeeded 
with  the  barbarians,  preserving  Eome  from  the  attacks 
which  were  often  threatened  but  never  carried  out ;  but  he 
did  little  good  with  Maurice,  who  on  his  side  had  few  troops 
to  send  and  no  general  able  to  make  a  successful  campaign 
against  the  Lombards.  The  officers  and  the  armies  of  the 
empire  were  of  use  in  exacting  taxes  for  the  imperial  treas- 
ury, but  not  for  opposing  a  vigorous  invader  or  rescuing  a 
defenceless  people. 

It  is  never  pretended  by  any  of  his  biographers  or  ad- 
mirers that  Gregory  was  a  man  of  learning,  or  even  inter- 
ested very  much  in  the  preservation  of  letters,  or  the  progress 
of  intellectual  life.  Learning  and  philosophy  were  the  in- 
heritance of  the  Greek  Church,  which  was  the  very  pre- 
sumptuous and  arrogant  rival  of  Kome,  and  the  cradle  of 
most  of  the  heresies  and  all  the  difficult  and  delicate  ques- 
tions which  had  troubled  the  peace  of  the  Church.  He  is 
accused,  though  without  sufficient  evidence,  of  burning  a 
library  of  Latin  poets,  a  thing  which  he  might  well  have 
done,  according  to  his  ideas,  without  much  sense  of  guilt. 
There  has  never  been  an  age  in  which  certain  books  have 
not  been  liable  to  that  reformation  by  fire,  and  the  principle 
is  quite  as  strong  now  as  in  the  sixth  century,  so  we  need 
not  take  pains  to  exonerate  Gregory  from  such  an  imputa- 
tion. He  did  not,  like  Jerome,  love  the  literature  which 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  155 

was  full  of  classical  images  and  allusions.  Neither  Cicero 
nor  Plato  would  have  tempted  him  to  occupy  himself  with 
vain  studies.  "  The  same  mouth/'  he  says,  "  should  not  pro- 
nounce the  name  of  Jupiter  and  that  of  Christ ; "  yet  at  the 
same  time  he  expresses  strong  regret  that  letters  had  died 
out  of  Borne,  amid  all  the  tumults  through  which  she  had 
passed.  Amid  the  jargon  of  barbarians  heard  on  every  side, 
Greek,  he  complains,  had  fallen  almost  out  of  knowledge. 
There  were  few  men  learned  enough  to  settle  a  question 
of  doctrine  by  reference  to  the  original  text  of  Scripture. 
"  Those  we  have  are  good  for  little  but  to  translate  word  by 
word ;  they  are  unable  to  grasp  the  sense,  and  it  is  with  diffi- 
culty that  we  understand  their  translations."  He  does  not 
take  any  credit  for  his  own  style,  which  indeed  is  anything 
but  Ciceronian.  He  complains  with  great  simplicity,  at 
the  end  of  his  dedication  to  Leander  of  his  Moralia,  of  the 
"  collisions  of  metacism,"  a  difficulty  about  the  letter  m 
which  would  seem  to  have  been  as  troublesome  as  the  let- 
ter li  in  our  own  day;  and  anticipates  criticism  by  confessing 
that  he  has  neglected  the  "  cases  of  prepositions."  "  For  I 
account  it  far  from  meet,"  he  says,  taking  as  we  should  say 
in  Scotland,  "  the  first  word  of  flyting,"  and  with  a  high 
hand,  "  to  submit  the  words  of  the  Divine  Oracle  to  the  rules 
of  (the  grammarian)  Donatus."  As  who  should  say  Lindley 
Murray  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  language  of  a  sermon. 
This  was  a  great  deal  for  a  man  to  say,  one  of  whose  early 
feats  in  life  had  been  the  conviction  and  conversion  by  argu- 
ment of  Eutychius,  whose  heresy  in  respect  to  the  body  of 
the  resurrection  (a  sufficiently  distant  and  far-off  subject  to 
disturb  the  Church  about  —  but  such  twists  of  impossible 
doctrine  have  always  affected  some  minds)  survived  himself 
—  but  who  acknowledged  with  his  dying  breath  that  he  was 
wrong  and  Gregory  right. 

Doctrine,  however,  was  not  the  point  on  which  Gregory 
was  most  strong  —  his  Dialogues,  written  it  is  said  for  the 


156  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

edification  and  strengthening  in  the  faith  of  the  Empress 
Theodolinda,  are  nothing  more  than  pious  discussions  and 
sanctions  of  the  miracles  performed  by  the  saints,  which 
we  fear  would  have  a  very  contrary  effect  if  published  in 
our  day.  His  works  upon  the  pastoral  law  and  the  disci- 
pline of  the  Church  are  the  most  valuable  and  important  of 
his  productions ;  though  in  these  also  his  point  of  view  is 
extraordinarily  different  from  ours,  and  he  advises  a  kind 
and  degree  of  toleration  which  is  somewhat  appalling  to  hear 
of.  For  instance,  in  his  instructions  to  Augustine  and  his 
band  of  missionaries  Gregory  instructs  them  to  interfere  as 
little  as  possible  with  the  customs,  especially  in  the  matter 
of  religious  observances,  of  the  people  among  whom  they 
were  sent.  They  were  not  to  put  down  the  familiar  accom- 
paniments of  their  converts'  native  rites  and  ceremonies. 
The  old  temples  of  Woden  and  Thor  were  not  to  be  aban- 
doned but  turned  to  a  new  and  better  use  ;  even  the  system 
of  sacrifice  to  these  gods  was  not  to  be  altogether  set  aside. 
"Let  there  be  no  more  victims  to  demons,"  he  says  with 
curious  casuistry,  "  but  let  them  kill  and  eat  giving  thanks 
to  God;  for  you  must  leave  them  some  material  enjoyments 
that  they  may  so  much  more  easily  enter  into  the  delights 
of  the  soul."  On  the  other  hand,  his  instructions  to  a  bishop 
of  Sardinia  bear  a  curiously  different  character.  He  recom- 
mended this  prelate  to  put  a  pressure  more  or  less  gentle 
upon  the  peasants  there  who  still  remained  pagan,  in  the 
form  of  an  increased  rent  and  taxes  until  such  time  as 
they  should  become  Christian.  "  Though  conversion  does 
not  come  by  force,"  he  says  with  sagacious  cynicism,  "  yet 
the  children  of  these  mercenary  converts  will  receive  bap- 
tism in  their  innocence  and  will  be  better  Christians  than 
their  fathers  ;  "  an  argument  which  certainly  embodies  much 
economic  truth  if  not  exactly  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 

Strangely  different  from  these  worldly-wise  suggestions, 
however,  are  the  detailed  instructions  for  pastoral  work, 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT. 


157 


quoted  by  Bede,  in  Gregory's  answer  to  the  questions  of 
Augustine,  in  which  the  artificial  conscience  of  the  confes- 
sional suddenly  appears  in  full  development,  by  the  side  of 
those  strange  counsels  of  a  still  semi-pagan  age.  Nothing 
can  be  more  remarkable  than  this  contrast,  which  exacts 
a  more  than  Levitical  punctilio  of  observance  from  the  de- 
vout, while  leaving  open  every  door  for  the  entrance  of  the 
profane.  Though  he  entered  with  so  much  reluctance  upon 


THE   PIAZZA   DEL   POPOLO. 


the  pastoral  care  of  the  Church,  no  one  has  laid  down  more 
detailed  directions  for  the  cure  of  souls.  It  would  seem  to 
have  been  in  reality  one  of  the  things  which  interested  him 
most.  His  mind  was  in  some  respects  that  of  a  statesman 
full  of  the  broadest  sense  of  expediency  and  of  the  practica- 
ble, and  of  toleration  and  compromise  carried  to  a  length 
which  fills  us  with  dismay ;  while  on  the  other  it  was  that 
of  a  parish  legislator,  an  investigator  of  personal  details,  to 
whom  no  trifle  was  unimportant,  and  the  most  fantastic  stip- 


158  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ulations  of  ritualistic  purification  of  as  great  moment  as 
morality  itself. 

In  contrast  however  with  those  letters  which  recommended 
what  was  little  more  than  a  forced  conversion,  and  which  have 
been  frequently  cited  as  examples  of  the  unscrupulousness 
of  the  early  missionaries,  we  must  here  quote  some  of  Greg- 
ory's pastoral  instructions  in  which  the  true  spirit  of  a  pastor 
shines  forth.  "  Nothing,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  epistles  to 
the  bishops  with  whom  he  kept  up  constant  communications, 
"is  so  heavy  a  burden  upon  a  priest  as  so  to  bend  the 
force  of  his  own  mind  in  sympathy,  as  to  change  souls  (cum 
personis  supervenientibus  animam  mutare)  with  each  new  per- 
son who  approaches  him ;  yet  this  is  very  necessary."  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  happy  in  expression  or  fine  in  sentiment,  and 
it  shows  how  completely  the  monk-Pope,  in  cloister  and  on 
throne,  understood  the  essential  character  of  his  great  pro- 
fession. Still  more  remarkable,  as  more  involved  in  per- 
sonal matters,  is  his  advice  to  Augustine,  who  had  consulted 
him  as  to  the  differences  in  worship  between  the  Galilean 
churches  and  those  of  Rome. 

"  You  know,  my  brother,  the  custom  of  the  Roman  Church  in  which 
you  were  bred  up.  But  it  will  please  me  if  when  you  have  found  any- 
thing, either  in  the  Roman  or  Gallican  or  any  other  Church,  which 
may  be  more  acceptable  to  Almighty  God,  you  will  carefully  make 
choice  of  the  same,  and  sedulously  teach  the  Church  of  the  English, 
which  as  yet  is  new  in  the  faith,  whatsoever  good  thing  you  can  gather 
from  the  several  Churches.  For  things  are  not  to  be  loved  for  the  sake 
of  places,  but  places  for  the  sake  of  good  things.  Choose  therefore 
from  every  Church  those  things  that  are  pious,  religious  and  upright, 
and  when  you  have  as  it  were  made  them  into  one  system,  let  the 
minds  of  the  English  be  accustomed  thereto." 

This  is  surely  the  truest  and  highest  toleration. 

The  Papacy  of  Gregory  began  in  trouble  and  distress; 
R/ome  was  more  disorganised,  more  miserable,  more  con- 
fused and  helpless  than  almost  ever  before,  although  she 
had  already  passed  through  many  a  terrible  crisis ;  and  he 
had  shrunk  from  the  terrible  task  of  setting  her  right.  But 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  159 

when  he  had  once  undertaken  that  task  there  was  neither 
weakness  nor  hesitation  in  the  manner  with  which  he  car- 
ried it  out.  The  public  penance  and  humiliation  to  which 
he  moved  the  people,  the  septiform  litany  with  its  chanting 
and  weeping  crowds,  the  ceaseless  prayers  and  intercessions 
in  the  Church  were  not  all,  though  no  doubt  the  chief  part 
to  Gregory,  of  those  methods  by  which  he  sustained  the 
courage,  or  rather  put  a  heart  into,  the  broken-down  popu- 
lation, so  that  for  once  a  show  of  resistance  was  made  when 
the  Lombards  threatened  the  city.  And  his  anxious  negoti- 
ations never  ceased.  The  Emperor,  far  off  and  indifferent, 
not  to  say  helpless,  in  Constantinople,  had  no  rest  from 
the  constant  remonstrances  and  appeals  of  the  ever-watch- 
ful Bishop.  Gregory  complained  and  with  reason  that 
no  efforts,  or  at  least  but  fictitious  ones,  were  made  for 
the  help  of  Rome,  and  that  the  indifference  or  hostility 
of  the  Emperor  was  more  dangerous  to  her  than  the  arms 
of  the  Lombards.  On  the  other  hand  he  addressed  him- 
self to  the  headquarters  of  the  invaders,  taking  as  his 
champion  —  as  was  his  custom,  as  it  has  always  been  the 
custom  of  the  Churchman  —  the  Queen  Theodolinda,  who 
had  become  a  Catholic  and  baptized  her  son  in  that  faith, 
notwithstanding  the  opposition  of  her  Arian  husband, 
and  was  therefore  a  very  fitting  and  natural  intercessor. 
"  What  an  overwhelming  charge  it  is ! "  he  cries  to  one  of 
his  correspondents,  "  to  be  at  once  weighted  with  the  super- 
vision of  the  bishops  and  clergy,  of  the  monasteries  and 
the  entire  people,  and  to  remain  all  the  time  watchful  to 
every  undertaking  of  the  enemy  and  on  my  guard  against 
the  robbery  and  injustice  of  our  rulers."  It  was  indeed  a 
burden  under  which  few  men  could  have  stood. 

Gregory  appears  to  have  neglected  no  movement  of  the 
foe,  to  have  noted  every  exaction  and  treachery  from  Con- 
stantinople, to  have  remembered  every  bishop  in  the  fur- 
thest-off  regions,  and  to  have  directed  to  each  in  tmrn  his 


160  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

expostulations,  his  entreaties,  his  reproofs.  We  have  been 
told  in  our  own  day  of  the  overwhelming  weight  of  business 
(attributed  to  facilities  of  post  and  daily  communications) 
which  almost  crushes  an  English  archbishop,  although  that 
dignitary  besides  the  care  of  the  Church  has  but  such  an 
amount  of  concern  in  public  matters  as  a  conscientious 
adviser  must  have.  But  Gregory  was  responsible  for  every- 
thing, the  lives  and  so  far  as  was  possible  the  liberties  of 
his  city  and  people,  their  daily  bread,  their  safety,  their  very 
existence,  besides  that  cure  of  souls  which  was  his  special 
occupation.  The  mass  of  correspondence,  which  beside  all 
his  other  work  he  managed  to  get  through,  forgetting  noth- 
ing, is  enough  to  put  any  modern  writer  of  hasty  notes  and 
curt  business  letters  to  shame.  On  this  point  there  may 
be  said  a  word  of  apology  for  the  much-harassed  Pope  in 
respect  to  that  one  moment  in  his  history,  in  which  his 
conduct  cannot  be  defended  by  his  warmest  admirer.  His 
prayers  and  appeals  were  treated  with  contempt  at  Con- 
stantinople, a  contempt  involving  not  his  own  person  alone, 
but  Rome  and  the  Church,  for  which  the  Emperor  Maurice 
did  not  even  pretend  to  care.  And  when  that  Emperor  was 
suddenly  swept  away,  it  is  natural  enough  that  a  sensation 
of  relief,  a  touch  of  hope  in  the  new  man  who,  notwith- 
standing the  treachery  and  cruelty  of  the  first  step  in  his 
career,  might  turn  out  better  than  his  predecessor,  should 
have  gleamed  across  the  mind  of  a  distant,  and  perhaps  at 
first  imperfectly  informed  spectator,  whose  interests  were 
so  closely  concerned.  The  complacency  with  which  Gregory 
wrote  to  Phocas,  the  amazing  terms  he  used  to  that  mur- 
derer and  tyrant,  will  always  be  the  darkest  stain  on  his 
reputation.  Under  Maurice  the  ministers  of  the  empire  had 
been  more  oppressive  than  the  invaders.  Perhaps  under 
Phocas  better  things  might  be  hoped  for.  It  is  all  that  can 
be  said  for  this  unfortunate  moment  of  his  career ;  but  it  is 
something  nevertheless. 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  161 

It  was  not  till  597,  when  he  had  occupied  his  bishopric 
for  seven  years,  that  Gregory  succeeded  in  carrying  out  the 
long-cherished  scheme  of  the  mission  to  England,  which  had 
been  for  many  years  so  near  his  heart.  It  is  said  that  he 
himself  had  purchased  some  of  the  captive  boys  who  caught 
his  eye  in  the  streets,  and  trained  them  in  the  Christian 
doctrine  and  faith,  in  order  that  they  might  -act  as  inter- 
preters and  commend  the  missionaries  to  their  people,  an 
expedient  which  has  been  so  largely  followed  (and  of 
course  boasted  of  as  an  original  thought)  in  recent  mis- 
sions. These  boys  would  by  this  time  have  attained  the 
age  of  manhood,  and  perhaps  this  determined  the  moment 
at  which  Augustine  and  his  companions  were  sent  forth. 
They  were  solemnly  consecrated  in  the  chapel  of  the  con- 
vent on  the  Coelian  hill,  Gregory's  beloved  home,  to  which 
he  always  returned  with  so  much  affection,  and  to  which 
they  also  belonged,  monks  of  the  same  house.  Their  names 
are  inscribed  in  the  porch  of  the  present  church  after  that 
cf  their  master,  with  designations  strangely  familiar  to  our 
British  ears  —  S.  Augustine,  Apostle  of  England;  S.  Law- 
rence, Archbishop  of  Canterbury;  S.  Mellitus,  of  London 
and  Canterbury;  S.  Justus,  of  Rochester;  S.  Paulinus,  of 
York,  appear  in  the  record,  the  first  teachers  and  ecclesias- 
tical dignitaries  of  Saxon  England.  The  church  in  which 
this  consecration  took  place  exists  no  longer ;  the  present 
building,  its  third  or  fourth  successor,  dates  only  from  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  is  dedicated  to  S.  Gregory  himself ; 
but  the  little  piazza  now  visited  by  so  many  pilgrims  is 
unchanged,  and  it  was  from  this  small  square,  so  minute 
a  point  amid  the  historic  places  of  Rome,  that  the  mission- 
ary party  set  forth,  Augustine  and  his  brethren  kneeling 
below,  while  the  Pope,  standing  at  the  head  of  the  steps, 
gave  them  his  parting  blessing.  No  doubt  the  young 
Angles,  with  their  golden  locks  of  childhood  matured  into 
russet  tones,  who  had  filled  Gregory's  mind  with  so  many 


162  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

thoughts,  were  in  the  group,  behind  the  black-robed  Bene- 
dictine brothers  whose  guides  and  interpreters  they  were 
to  be. 

This  is  an  association  full  of  interest  for  every  English- 
man, and  has  attracted  many  pilgrims  from  the  nation  whose 
faith  has  undergone  so  many  vicissitudes,  and  in  which  the 
Pope's  authority  has  been  as  vehemently  decried  in  one  age 
as  strongly  upheld  in  another ;  but  whatever  our  opinions  on 
that  point  may  be,  there  can  be  nothing  here  but  affectionate 
and  grateful  remembrance  of  the  man  of  God  who  had  so 
long  cherished  the  scheme,  which  thus  at  length  with  fatherly 
benedictions  and  joy  at  heart,  he  was  able  to  carry  out.  He 
himself  would  fain  have  gone  on  this  mission  many  years 
before  ;  but  the  care  of  all  the  Churches,  and  the  tribulations 
of  a  distracted  world,  had  made  that  for  ever  impossible,  and 
he  was  now  growing  old,  in  feeble  health,  and  with  but  a 
few  years  of  work  before  him.  The  hearts  of  the  mission- 
aries were  not  so  strong  as  that  of  this  great  Servant  of  the 
servants  of  God  who  sent  them  away  with  his  blessing. 
Terrors  of  the  sea  and  terrors  of  the  wilds,  the  long  journey 
and  the  savage  tribes  at  the  end  of  it,  were  in  their  hearts. 
When  they  had  got  nearly  over  their  journey  and  were  rest- 
ing a  little  to  recover  their  health  among  the  Gauls,  —  fierce 
enough  indeed,  but  still  with  sanctuaries  of  peace  and  holy 
brethren  among  them  —  before  crossing  the  terrible  channel, 
Augustine  wrote  beseeching  letters,  begging  to  be  recalled. 
But  let  us  hope  that  at  the  moment  of  dedication  these  ter- 
rors had  scarcely  yet  got  hold  upon  them.  And  to  Gregory 
the  occasion  was  one  of  unmingled  satisfaction  and  joy. 
The  Pope  did  not  in  those  days  wear  the  white  robes  which 
distinguish  his  dignity  now.  Gregory  was  presumably  in- 
different to  such  signs  and  tokens;  for  in  the  portrait  of 
him  which  still  exists  in  the  description  given  of  it  by  John 
the  Deacon,  he  wears  a  dress  scarcely  distinguishable  from 
the  ordinary  dress  of  a  layman.  But  as  he  stood  upon  the 


i.]  GREGORY  THE  GREAT.  163 

steps  in  front  of  the  church,  separated  from  all  the  attend- 
ants, and  raised  his  hands  in  blessing,  the  scene  is  one  that 
any  painter  might  covet,  and  which  to  many  a  visitor  from 
these  distant  islands  of  the  seas  will  make  the  little  Piazza 
di  San  Gregorio  more  interesting  in  its  simplicity  than  any 
other  spot  in  storied  Eome. 

It  would  occupy  too  much  time  to  quote  here  his  long  and 
careful  letters  to  the  bishops  of  the  West  generally  —  from 
Sicily  which  always  seems  to  have  been  the  object  of  his 
special  care,  to  those  in  Gaul  and  his  missionaries  in  Eng- 
land. That  he  assumed  an  unquestioned  authority  over 
them  is  clear,  an  authority  which  had  more  or  less  been 
exercised  by  the  Bishop  of  Eome  for  many  generations 
before  him  :  and  that  he  was  unfeignedly  indignant  at  the 
pretensions  of  John  of  Constantinople  to  be  called  Uni- 
versal Bishop  is  also  certain.  These  facts  however  by  no 
means  prove  that  a  great  scheme  of  papal  authority  was  the 
chief  thing  in  his  mind,  underlying  all  his  undertakings. 
When  the  historians  speak  of  Gregory  as  spreading  the 
supremacy  of  the  Church  of  Eome  by  his  missions,  notably 
by  that  mission  to  England  of  which  I  have  just  spoken, 
they  forget  that  the  salvation  of  the  souls  lying  in  darkness 
is  a  motive  which  has  moved  men  in  every  age  to  the  great- 
est sacrifices,  and  that  we  have  no  reason  in  the  world  to 
believe  that  it  was  not  the  faith  of  Christ  rather  than  the 
supremacy  of  Eome  which  was  Gregory's  object.  The 
Apostles  themselves  might  be  said  in  the  same  way  to  have 
been  spreading  their  own  supremacy  when  they  obeyed  the 
injunction  of  their  Master  to  go  over  the  whole  world  and 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature.  The  one  sovereignty 
was  actually  implied  in  the  other  —  but  it  requires  a  very 
robust  faith  in  a  preconceived  dogma,  and  a  very  small  under- 
standing of  human  nature,  .to  be  able  to  believe  that  when 
the  meditative  monk  paused  in  his  walk,  with  compassion 
and  interest,  to  look  at  the  angelic  boys,  and  punned  tenderly 


164  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

with  tears  in  his  eyes  over  their  names  and  nation  and  king, 
the  idea  immediately  sprang  up  in  his  mind  not  that  Alle- 
lujah  should  be  sung  in  the  dominions  of  King  Alle,  but  that 
this  wild  country  lost  in  the  midst  of  the  seas  should  be 
brought  under  a  spiritual  sceptre  not  yet  designed. 

Gregory  thought  as  the  Apostles  thought,  that  the  days 
of  the  world  were  numbered,  and  that  his  own  generation 
might  see  its  records  closed.  That  is  an  idea  which  never 
has  stopped  any  worthy  man  in  undertakings  for  the  good 
of  the  world  —  but  it  was  a  belief  better  established,  and 
much  more  according  to  all  the  theories  and  dogmas  of  the 
age,  than  a  plan  of  universal  dominion  for  the  Church  such 
as  is  attributed  to  him.  He  did  his  duty  most  energetically 
and  strenuously  in  every  direction  —  never  afraid  of  being 
supposed  to  interfere,  using  the  prestige  of  the  Apostolical 
See  freely  for  every  ecclesiastical  purpose.  And  he  became 
prince  in  Eome,  an  absolute  sovereign  by  stress  of  circum- 
stance and  because  every  other  rule  and  authority  had 
failed.  Whether  these  practical  necessities  vaguely  formed 
themselves  into  visions  of  spiritual  empire  before  the  end 
of  his  life  it  is  impossible  to  tell :  as  it  is  equally  impos- 
sible to  tell  what  dreams  of  happiness  or  grandeur  may 
enter  into  any  poor  man's  brain.  But  so  large  and  world- 
embracing  a  plan  seldom  springs  fully  formed  into .  any 
mind,  and  in  his  words  he  never  claimed,  nay,  vehemently 
denied  and  repudiated,  any  pretension  of  the  kind.  It  is 
curious  how  difficult  it  is  to  get  the  world  to  believe  that  a 
man  placed  in  a  position  of  great  responsibility,  at  the 
head  of  any  institution,  is  first  of  all  actuated  by  the  desire 
of  doing  his  work,  whatever  the  ulterior  results  may  be. 

Gregory's  activity  was  boundless,  though  his  health  was 
weak,  and  his  sufferings  many.  Fastings  in  his  youth  and 
neglect  at  all  times  told  early  upon  his  constitution.  The 
dinner  of  herbs  which  his  mother  sent  him  daily,  and  which 
is  sometimes  described  as  uncooked  —  salad  to  wit,  which 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  165 

enters  so  largely  into  the  sustenance  of  the  Italian  poor  — • 
is  a  kind  of  fare  which  does  not  suit  a  delicate  digestion; 
but  he  spared  himself  nothing  on  this  account,  though  he 
had  reached  such  a  pitch  of  weakness  that  he  was  at  last, 
as  he  bitterly  laments,  unable  to  fast  at  all,  even  on  Easter 
Eve,  when  even  little  children  abstain  from  food.  Beside 
all  the  labours  which  I  have  already  noted,  there  remains 
one  detail  which  has  done  perhaps  more  to  make  the  com- 
mon world  familiar  with  his  name  than  all  the  rest;  and  that 
is  the  reformation  in  music  which  he  accomplished  among 
all  his  other  labours.  Church  music  is  the  only  branch  of 
the  art  of  which  we  have  any  authentic  record  which  dates 
so  far  back,  and  the  Gregorian  chant  still  exists  among 
us,  with  that  special  tone  of  wailing  mingled  with  its  solemn 
measures  which  is  characteristic  of  all  primitive  music. 

"Four  scales,"  says  Mr.  Helmore  in  Tfie  Dictionary  of  Music, 
"traditionally  ascribed  to  St.  Ambrose,  existed  before  the  time  of  St. 
Gregory.  These,  known  as  the  Authentic  Modes,  and  since  the  thir- 
teenth century  named  after  the  ancient  Greek  scales  from  which  they 
were  supposed  to  be  derived,  are  as  follows  :  1,  Dorian  ;  2,  Phrygian  ; 
3,  Lydian  ;  4,  Mixo-Lydian.  To  the  four  Authentic  St.  Gregory  added 
four  Plagal,  i.e.  collateral  or  relative  Modes.  Each  is  a  fourth  below 
its  corresponding  original,  and  is  called  by  the  same  name  with  the 
prefix  hypo  (u?r6,  below),  as  follows:  5,  Hypo-Dorium;  6,  Hypo- 
Phrygian;  7,  Hypo-Lydian;  8,  Hypo-Mixo-Lydian.  .  .  .  Handel's 
'  Hanover '  among  modern  tunes,  which  ranges  from  F  to  F  has  its 
finale  on  B|?.  '  Should  auld  acquaintance  be  forgot '  is  also  a  specimen 
of  a  tune  in  a  Plagal  Mode  descending  about  a  fourth  below  its  final, 
and  rising  above  it  only  six  notes,  closing  upon  the  final  of  its  tone." 

This  may  be  a  little  too  learned  for  the  ordinary  reader, 
but  it  is  interesting  to  find  how  far  the  influence  of  the 
busy  old  Pope,  who  had  a  finger  in  every  pie,  could  go. 
There  is  a  very  curious  commentary  by  John  the  Deacon, 
Gregory's  later  biographer,  upon  this  new  musical  system 
and  its  adoption  throughout  Europe,  which  makes  a  good 
pendant  to  the  scientific  description.  The  Italians  seem 
then  as  now  to  have  had  a  poor  opinion  of  German  modes 
of  singing. 


166  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

"This  music  was  learned  easily  by  the  Germans  and  Gauls,  but  they 
could  not  retain  it  because  of  making  additions  of  their  own,  and  also 
because  of  their  barbarous  nature.  Their  Alpine  bodies  resounding 
to  their  depths  with  the  thunders  of  their  voices,  do  not  properly  give 
forth  the  sweetness  of  the  modulation,  the  savage  roughness  of  their 
bibulous  throat  when  it  attempts  to  give  forth  a  delicate  strain,  pro- 
ducing rather  harsh  sounds  with  a  natural  crash,  as  of  waggons  sound- 
ing confusedly  over  the  scales." 

This  is  not  flattering;  but  one  can  imagine  something 
very  like  it  coming  from  the  lips  of  an  Italian  Maestro  in 
our  own  day.  The  tradition  goes  that  Gregory  himself 
instructed  the  choristers,  for  whom  he  had  established 
schools  endowed  each  with  its  little  property,  one  in  the 
precincts  of  St.  Peter's,  the  other  in  those  of  St.  John 
Lateran,  where  his  own  residence  was.  And  a  couch  is  still 
shown  on  which  he  lay  while  giving  or  superintending  their 
lessons,  and  even  the  whip  with  which  he  is  said  to  have 
threatened  the  singers  when  they  made  false  notes.  The 
last  is  little  in  accord  with  the  Pope's  character,  and  we 
can  scarcely  imagine  the  twang  through  the  air  of  any  whip 
in  Gregory's  hand:  but  it  is  probably  as  true  as  other  more 
agreeable  circumstances  of  the  legend.  One  can  scarcely 
believe  however  that  amid  his  multitudinous  occupations  he 
could  have  had  time  for  more  than  a  flying  visit  to  the 
schools,  however  they  might  interest  him. 

Nor  did  he  limit  his  exertions  on  behalf  of  ritual  to  the 
arrangement  of  the  music.  We  are  told  that  the  Missal  of 
Pope  Gelasius  then  used  in  the  Church  was  revised  by  him, 
and  .that  he  took  away  much,  altered  some  things  and  added 
a  little,  among  other  things  a  confession  of  faith  or  Credo 
of  his  own  writing,  which  is  something  between  the  Atha- 
nasian  and  Nicene  Creeds.  The  Ordinary  of  the  Mass 
remains  now,  another  authority  tells  us,  very  much  as  it 
came  from  his  hands.  Thus  his  immediate  authority  and 
the  impress  of  his  mind  remain  on  things  which  are  still  in 
daily  use. 

And  there  could  be  no  more  familiar  or  characteristic  fig- 


I.] 


GREGORY  THE   GREAT. 


167 


ure  in  Borne  than  that  of  this  monk-Pope  threading  every- 
where those  familiar  streets,  in  which  there  were  more 
ruins,  and  those  all  fresh  and  terrible  in  their  suggestions 
of  life  destroyed  —  than  now :  the  gentle  spectator  full  of 
meditation,  who  lingered  among  the  group  of  slaves,  and 
saw  and  loved  and  smiled  at  the  Saxon  boys :  who  passed 
by  Trajan's  Forum  which  we  all  know  so  well,  that  field 
of  broken  pillars,  not  then  railed  off  and  trim  in  all  the 


MONTE  PINCIO,   FROM  THE  PIAZZA  DEL  POPOLO. 

orderliness  of  an  outdoor  museum,  but  wild  in  the  neglect 
of  nature :  and  heard  the  story  of  the  Emperor,  and  loved 
him  too,  and  poured  out  his  soul  to  God  for  the  great 
heathen,  so  that  the  gates  of  Hades  were  rolled  back  and 
the  soul  set  free  —  strange  parable  of  brotherly  kindness  as 
the  dominant  principle  of  heart  and  life.  We  can  follow 
him  through  all  the  lists  of  the  poor  laid  up  in  his  Scrivii, 
like  the  catalogues  of  books  enclosed  in  caskets,  in  an  old- 
fashioned  library  —  with  careful  enumeration  of  every  half- 


168  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ruined  tenement  and  degraded  palace  where  the  miserable 
had  found  shelter:  or  passing  among  the  crowds  who 
received  their  portions  before,  not  after,  the  Pope  in  the 
precincts  of  the  great  basilica;  or  "modulating,"  with  a 
voice  broken  by  age  and  weakness,  the  new  tones  of  his 
music  which  the  "  bibulous  throats  "  of  the  barbarian  con- 
verts turned  into  thunder,  and  of  which  even  his  own  chor- 
isters, careless  as  is  their  use,  would  make  discords,  till  the 
whip  of  the  Master  trembled  in  the  air,  adding  the  sting  of 
a  sharper  sound  to  the  long-drawn  notes  of  the  monotone, 
and  compelling  every  heedless  tenor  and  frivolous  soprano 
to  attention.  These  are  his  simpler  aspects,  the  lower  life 
of  the  great  Benedictine,  the  picture  of  the  Pope  as  he 
endeared  himself  to  the  popular  imagination,  round  which 
all  manner  of  tender  legends  grew.  His  aspect  is  less 
familiar  yet  not  less  true  as  he  sits  at  the  head  of  affairs, 
dictating  or  writing  with  his  own  hand  those  innumerable 
letters  which  treat  of  every  subject  under  heaven,  from  the 
safety  of  Eome  to  the  cross  which  is  to  be  hung  round  a 
royal  infant's  neck,  or  the  amethyst  ring  for  the  finger  of 
a  little  princess;  from  the  pretensions  of  John  of  Constan- 
tinople, that  would-be  head  of  the  Church,  down  to  the  ass 
sent  by  the  blundering  intendant  from  Sicily.  Nothing 
was  too  great,  nothing  too  little  for  his  care.  He  had  to 
manage  the  mint  and  cummin  without  leaving  graver  mat- 
ters undone. 

And  the  reader  who  has  leisure  may  follow  him  into  the 
maze  of  those  Dialogues  in  which  Peter  the  Deacon  serves 
as  questioner,  and  the  Pope  discourses  gently,  to  improve 
his  ignorance,  of  all  the  wonderful  things  which  the  saints 
have  done,  chiefly  in  Italy,  turning  every  law  of  nature 
upside  down :  or  follow  him  through  the  minute  and  end- 
less rules  of  his  book  of  discipline,  and  note  the  fine-drawn 
scruples  with  which  he  has  to  deal,  the  strange  cases  of  con- 
science for  which  he  provides,  the  punctilio  of  extravagant 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  169 

penitence,  so  strangely  contrasted  with  the  other  rough  and 
ready  modes  of  dealing  with  the  unconverted,  to  which 
he  gives  the  sanction  of  his  recommendation.  He  was  a 
man  of  his  time,  not  of  ours :  he  flattered  Phocas  while  his 
hands  were  still  wet  with  his  predecessor's  blood  —  though 
we  may  still  hope  that  at  such  a  distance  Gregory  did  not 
know  all  that  had  happened  or  what  a  ruffian  it  was  whom 
he  thus  addressed.  He  wrote  affectionately  and  with  devo- 
tion to  Queen  Brunhild  without  inquiring  into  that  lady's 
character,  which  no  doubt  he  knew  perfectly.  Where  the 
good  of  Kome,  either  the  city  or  the  Church,  was  concerned, 
he  stopped  at  nothing.  I  have  no  desire  to  represent  him  as 
faultless.  But  the  men  who  are  faultless,  if  any  are  to  be 
found,  leave  but  a  limited  record,  and  there  is  little  more  to 
say  of  perfection  than  that  it  is  perfect.  Gregory  was  not  so. 
He  got  very  angry  sometimes,  with  bishops  in  Sicily,  with 
stupid  intendants,  above  all  with  that  Eastern  John  —  and 
sometimes,  which  is  worse,  he  was  submissive  and  compliant 
when  he  ought  to  have  been  angry  and  denounced  a  crimi- 
nal. But  on  the  other  hand  he  was  the  first  of  the  great 
ecclesiastical  princes  who  have  made  Modern  Eome  illus- 
trious —  he  was  able,  greatest  of  miracles,  to  put  a  heart 
into  the  miserable  city  which  had  allowed  herself  to  be 
overrun  by  every  savage :  and  stood  between  her  and  all 
creation,  giving  the  whole  world  assurance  of  a  man,  and 
fighting  for  her  with  every  weapon  that  came  to  his  hand. 
Doing  whatsoever  he  found  to  do  thoroughly  well,  he  laid 
the  foundations  of  that  great  power  which  still  extends  over 
the  whole  world.  I  do  not  believe  that  he  acted  on  any 
plan  or  had  the  supremacy  of  the  Pontificate  in  his  mind, 
or  had  conceived  any  idea  of  an  ecclesiastical  empire  which 
should  grasp  the  universe.  To  say,  for  instance,  that  the 
mission  to  England  which  he  had  cherished  so  long  was 
undertaken  with  the  idea  of  extending  the  sway  of  the 
Papacy  seems  one  of  those  follies  of  the  theorist  which 


170  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

requires  no  answer.  St.  Paul  might  as  well  be  accused  of 
intending  to  spread  a  spiritual  empire  when- he  saw  in  his 
dream  that  man  of  Macedonia,  and  immediately  directed 
his  steps  thither,  obeying  the  vision.  What  Gregory  hoped 
and  prayed  for  was  to  bring  in  a  new  nation,  as  he  judged 
a  noble  and  vigorous  race,  to  Christianity.  And  he  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  so:  with  such  secondary  consequences  as 
the  developments  of  time,  and  the  laws  of  progress,  and  the 
course  of  Providence  brought  about. 

There  is  a  certain  humour  in  the  indignation,  which  has 
been  several  times  referred  to,  with  which  he  turned  against 
the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  and  his  pretensions  to  a 
supremacy  which  naturally  was  in  the  last  degree  obnox- 
ious to  the  Bishop  of  Eome.  The  Eastern  and  Western 
Churches  had  already  diverged  widely  from  each  other,  the 
one  nourished  and  subdued  under  the  shadow  of  a  Court,  in 
a  leisure  which  left  it  open  to  every  refinement  and  every 
temptation,  whether  of  asceticism  or  heresy  —  both  of  which 
abounded:  the  other  fighting  hard  for  life  amid  the  rudest 
and  most  practical  dangers,  obliged  to  work  and  fight  like 
Nehemiah  on  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  with  the  tool  in  one 
hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other.  John  the  Faster,  so  dis- 
tinguished because  of  the  voluntary  privations  which  he 
imposed  upon  himself,  forms  one  of  the  most  startling  con- 
trasts of  this  age  with  Gregory,  worn  by  work  and  warfare, 
whose  spare  and  simple  meal  could  not  be  omitted  even  on 
the  eve  of  Easter.  That  he  who,  sitting  in  St.  Peter's  seat, 
with  all  the  care  of  Church  and  country  upon  his  shoulders, 
obeyed  by  half  the  world,  yet  putting  forth  in  words  no 
such  pretension  —  should  be  aggrieved  almost  beyond  endur- 
ance by  the  dignity  conferred  on,  or  assumed  by,  the  other 
bishop,  whose  see  was  not  apostolical  but  the  mere  creation 
of  an  emperor,  and  the  claim  put  forth  by  him  and  the 
Council  called  by  him  for  universal  obedience,  is  very 
natural;  yet  Gregory's  wrath  has  a  fiercely  human  sense  of 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  173 

injury  in  it,  an  aggrieved  individuality  to  which  we  cannot 
deny  our  sympathy.  "There  is  no  doubt,"  he  says  with 
dignity,  writing  to  the  Emperor  on  the  subject,  "  that  the 
keys  of  heaven  were  given  to  Peter,  the  power  of  binding 
and  loosing,  and  the  care  of  the  whole  Church ;  and  yet  he 
is  not  called  Universal  Apostle.  Nor  does  it  detract  from 
the  honour  of  the  See  that  the  sins  of  Gregory  are  so  great 
that  he  ought  to  suffer;  for  there  are  no  sins  of  Peter  that 
he  should  be  treated  thus.  The  honour  of  Peter  is  not  to 
be  brought  low  because  of  us  who  serve  him  unworthily." 
"  Oh  tempora,  oh  mores ! "  he  exclaims ;  "  Europe  lies  pros- 
trate under  the  power  of  the  barbarians.  Its  towns  are 
destroyed,  its  fortresses  thrown  down,  its  provinces  depopu- 
lated, the  soil  has  no  longer  labourers  to  till  it ;  and  yet 
priests  who  ought  to  humble  themselves  with  tears  in  the 
dust  strive  after  vain  honours  and  glorify  themselves  with 
titles  new  and  profane !  "  To  John  himself  he  writes  with 
more  severity,  reminding  him  of  the  vaunt  of  Lucifer  in 
Isaiah,  "I  will  exalt  my  throne  above  the  stars  of  heaven." 
Now  bishops,  he  says,  are  the  stars  of  heaven,  they  shine 
over  men;  they  are  clouds  (the  metaphors  are  mixed)  that 
rain  words  and  are  lighted  up  by  the  rays  of  good  works. 
"What,  then,"  he  asks,  "is  the  act  of  your  paternity,  in 
looking  down  upon  them  and  pressing  them  into  subjection, 
but  following  the  example  of  the  ancient  enemy?  When  I 
see  this  I  weep  that  the  holy  man,  the  Lord  John,  a  man  so 
renowned  for  self-sacrifice,  should  so  act.  Certainly  Peter 
was  first  in  the  whole  Church.  Andrew,  James,  and  the 
others  were  but  heads  of  the  people ;  yet  all  made  up  one 
body,  and  none  were  called  Universal." 

The  argument  with  which  Gregory  replies  to  a  letter  from 
Eulogius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  had  wished  him  to 
assume  himself  a  similar  title,  is  curious.  The  Apostolical 
See,  he  says,  consists  of  three  bishoprics,  all  held  by  St. 
Peter,  that  of  Antioch,  that  of  Alexandria,  and  that  of 


174  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

Rome,  and  the  honour  of  the  title  is  shared  between  them. 
"If  you  give  me  more  than  my  due,"  he  adds,  "you  rob 
yourself.  If  I  am  named  Pope,  you  own  yourself  to  be  no 
pope.  Let  no  such  thing  be  named  between  us.  My  honour 
is"  the  honour  of  the  Universal  Church.  I  am  honoured  in 
the  honour  paid  to  my  brethren."  Nothing  could  be  more 
determined  than  this  oft-repeated  refusal.  Yet  he  never 
fails  to  add  that  it  was  Peter's  right.  The  Council  of 
Chalcedon,  he  says,  offered  that  supreme  title  to  the 
Church  of  Eome,  which  refused  it.  How  much  greater 
then,  was  the  guilt  of  John,  to  whom  it  was  never  offered, 
but  who  assumed  it,  injuring  all  priests  by  setting  himself 
above  them,  and  the  Empire  itself  by  a  position  superior 
to  it  ?  Such  were  the  sentiments  of  Gregory,  in  which  the 
wrath  of  a  natural  heir,  thus  supplanted  by  a  usurper,  gives 
fervour  to  every  denunciation.  The  French  historian  Ville- 
main  points  out,  what  will  naturally  occur  to  the  reader, 
that  many  of  these  arguments  were  afterwards  used  with 
effect  by  Luther  and  his  followers  against  the  assumptions 
of  the  Church  of  Eome.  It  will  also  be  remembered  that 
Jerome  put  the  case  more  strongly  still,  denouncing  the 
Scarlet  Woman  with  as  much  fervour  as  any  Eo-Popery 
orator. 

But  while  he  rejected  all  such  titles  and  assumed  for 
himself  only  that,  conceived  no  doubt  in  all  humility  and 
sincere  meaning,  but  afterwards  worn  with  pride  surpass- 
ing that  of  any  earthly  monarch,  of  Servus  Servorum  Dei, 
the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  Gregory  occupied  him- 
self, as  has  been  said,  with  the  care  of  all  the  churches  in 
full  exercise  of  the  authority  and  jurisdiction  of  an  over- 
seer, at  least  over  the  western  half  of  Christendom.  Vain 
titles  he  would  have  none,  and  we  cannot  doubt  his  sin- 
cerity in  rejecting  them ;  but  the  reality  of  the  pastoral 
supervision,  never  despotic,  but  continual,  was  clearly  his 
idea  of  his  own  rights  and  duties.  It  has  been  seen  what 


i.]  GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  175 

license  he  left  to  Augustine  in  the  regulation  of  the  new 
English  Church.  He  acted  with  an  equally  judicious  liber- 
ality in  respect  to  the  rich  and  vigorous  Gallican  bishops, 
never  demanding  too  servile  an  obedience,  but  never  inter- 
mitting his  superintendence  of  all.  But  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  put  forth  the  smallest  pretension  to  political  inde- 
pendence, even  when  that  was  forced  upon  him  by  his 
isolated  and  independent  position,  and  he  found  himself 
compelled  to  make  his  own  terms  with  the  Lombard  in- 
vaders. At  the  moment  of  his  election  as  Bishop  of  Eome, 
he  appealed  to  the  Emperor  against  the  popular  appoint- 
ment, and  only  when  the  imperial  decision  was  given 
against  him  allowed  himself  to  be  dragged  from  his  soli- 
tude. And  one  of  his  accusations  against  John  of  Constan- 
tinople was  that  his  assumption  injured  the  very  Empire 
itself  in  its  supreme  authority.  Thus  we  may,  and  indeed 
I  think  must,  conclude  that  Gregory's  supposed  theory  of 
the  universal  papal  power  was  as  little  real  as  are  most 
such  elaborate  imputations  of  purpose  conceived  long  be- 
fore the  event.  He  had  no  intention,  so  far  as  the  evidence 
goes,  of  making  himself  an  arbitrator  between  kings,  and 
a  judge  of  the  world's  actions  and  movements.  He  had 
enough  and  too  much  work  of  his  own  which  it  was  his 
determination  to  do,  as  vigorously  and  with  as  much  effect 
as  possible  —  in  the  doing  of  which  work  it  was  necessary 
to  influence,  to  conciliate,  to  appeal,  as  well  as  to  command 
and  persuade :  to  make  terms  with  barbarians,  to  remon- 
strate with  emperors,  as  well  as  to  answer  the  most  minute 
questions  of  the  bishops,  and  lay  out  before  them  the 
proper  course  they  were  to  pursue.  There  is  nothing  so 
easy  as  to  attribute  deep-laid  plans  to  the  great  spirits 
among  men.  I  do  not  think  that  Gregory  had  time  for 
any  such  ambitious  projects.  He  had  to  live  for  the  peo- 
ple dependent  upon  him,  who  were  a  multitude,  to  defend, 
feed,  guide  and  teach  them.  He  had  never  an  unoccupied 


176  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

moment,  and  he  did  in  each  moment  work  enough  for  half 
a  dozen  men.  That  it  was  his  duty  to  superintend  and 
guide  everything  that  went  on,  so  far  as  was  wise  or  prac- 
ticable, in  the  Church  as  well  as  in  his  immediate  diocese, 
was  clearly  his  conviction,  and  the  reader  may  find  it  a 
little  difficult  to  see  why  he  should  have  guarded  that 
power  so  jealously,  yet  rejected  the  name  of  it:  but  that 
is  as  far  as  any  reasonable  criticism  can  go. 

What  would  seem  an  ancient  complaint  against  Gregory 
appears  in  the  sketch  of  his  life  given  by  Platina,  in  his 
Lives  of  the  Popes  —  who  describes  him  as  having  been 
"censured  by  a  few  ignorant  men  as  if  the  ancient  stately 
buildings  were  demolished  by  his  order,  lest  strangers  com- 
ing out  of  devotion  to  Rome  should  less  regard  the  conse- 
crated places,  and  spend  all  their  gaze  upon  triumphal 
arches  and  monuments  of  antiquity."  This  curious  accusa- 
tion is  answered  by  the  author  in  words  which  I  quote 
from  an  almost  contemporary  translation  very  striking  in 
its  forcible  English.  "  No  such  reproach,"  says  Platina  in 
the  vigorous  version  of  Sir  Paul  Rycant,  Knight,  "can  justly 
be  fastened  on  this  great  Bishop,  especially  considering  that 
he  was  a  native  of  the  city,  and  one  to  whom,  next  after 
God,  his  country  was  most  dear,  even  above  his  life.  'Tis 
certain  that  many  of  those  ruined  structures  were  devoured 
by  time,  and  many  might,  as  we  daily  see,  be  pulled  down 
to  build  new  houses;  and  for  the  rest  'tis  probable  that, 
for  the  sake  of  the  brass  used  in  the  concavity  of  the 
arches  and  the  conjunctures  of  the  marble  or  other  square 
stones,  they  might  be  battered  or  defaced  not  only  by  the 
barbarous  nations  but  by  the  Romans  too,  if  Epirotes,  Dal- 
matians, Pannonians,  and  other  sorry  people  who  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  resorted  hither,  may  be  called  Romans." 

This  is  a  specious  argument  which  would  not  go  far  toward 
establishing  Gregory's  innocence  were  he  seriously  accused : 
but  the  accusation,  like  that  of  burning  classical  manuscripts, 


i.]  GREGORY  THE  GREAT.  177 

has  no  proof.  Little  explanation,  however,  is  necessary  to 
account  for  the  ruins  of  a  city  which  has  undergone  several 
sieges.  That  Gregory  would  have  helped  himself  freely  as 
everybody  did,  and  has  done  in  all  ages,  to  the  materials 
lying  so  conveniently  at  hand  in  the  ruined  palaces  which 
nobody  had  any  mission  to  restore,  may  be  believed  without 
doubt ;  for  he  was  a  man  far  too  busy  and  preoccupied  to 
concern  himself  with  questions  of  Art,  or  set  any  great  price 
upon  the  marble  halls  of  patrician  houses,  however  interest- 
ing might  be  their  associations  or  beautiful  their  structure. 
But  he  built  few  new  churches,  we  are  expressly  told, 
though  he  was  careful  every  year  to  look  into  the  condition 
of  all  existing  ecclesiastical  buildings  and  have  them  repaired. 
It  seems  probable  that  it  might  be  a  later  Gregory  however 
against  whom  this  charge  was  made.  In  the  time  of  Gregory 
the  First  these  ruins  were  recent,  and  it  was  but  too  likely 
that  at  any  moment  a  new  horde  of  unscrupulous  iconoclasts 
might  sweep  over  them  again. 

There  came  however  a  time  when  the  Pope's  suffering  and 
emaciated  body  could  bear  no  longer  that  charge  which  was 
so  burdensome.  He  had  been  ill  for  many  years,  suffering 
from  various  ailments  and  especially  from  weakness  of  diges- 
tion, and  he  seems  to  have  broken  down  altogether  towards 
the  year  601.  Agelulphus  thundering  at  his  gates  had  com- 
pleted what  early  fastings  and  the  constant  work  of  a  labo- 
rious life  had  begun,  and  at  sixty  Gregory  took  to  his  bed, 
from  which,  as  he  complains  in  one  of  his  letters,  he  was 
scarcely  able  to  rise  for  three  hours  on  the  great  festivals  of 
the  Church  in  order  to  celebrate  Mass.  He  was  obliged  also 
to  conclude  abruptly  that  commentary  on  Ezekiel  which  had 
been  so  often  interrupted,  leaving  the  last  vision  of  the 
prophet  unexpounded,  which  he  regretted  the  more  that  it 
was  one  of  the  most  dark  and  difficult,  and  stood  in  great 
need  of  exposition.  "  But  how/'  he  says,  "  can  a  mind  full 
of  trouble  clear  up  such  dark  meanings?  The  more  the 


178  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

mind  is  engaged  with  worldly  things  the  less  is  it  quali- 
fied to  expound  the  heavenly."  It  was  from  Ezekiel  that 
Gregory  was  preaching  when  the  pestilence  which  swept 
away  his  predecessor  Pelagius  was  raging  in  Rome,  and 
when,  shutting  the  book  which  was  no  longer  enough  with 
its  dark  sayings  to  calm  the  troubles  of  the  time,  he  had 
called  out  to  the  people,  with  a  voice  which  was  as  that  of 
their  own  hearts,  to  repent.  All  his  life  as  Pope  had  been 
threaded  through  with  the  study  of  this  prophet.  He  closed 
the  book  again  and  finally  when  all  Rome  believed  that 
another  invasion  was  imminent,  and  his  courage  failed  in 
this  last  emergency.  It  is  curious  to  associate  the  name  of 
such  a  man,  so  full  of  natural  life  and  affection,  so  humor- 
ous, so  genial,  so  ready  to  take  interest  in  everything  that 
met  his  eyes,  with  these  two  saddest  figures  in  all  the 
round  of  sacred  history,  the  tragic  patriarch  Job,  and  the 
exiled  prophet,  who  was  called  upon  to  suffer  every  sorrow 
in  order  to  be  a  sign  to  his  people  and  generation.  Was  it 
that  the  very  overflowing  of  life  and  sympathy  in  him  made 
Gregory  seek  a  balance  to  his  own  buoyant  spirit  in  the 
plaints  of  those  two  melancholy  voices  ?  or  was  it  the  mis- 
fortunes of  his  time,  so  distracted  and  full  of  miserable 
agitation,  which  directed  him  at  least  to  the  latter,  the 
prophet  of  a  fallen  nation,  of  disaster  and  exile  and  peni- 
tence ? 

Thus  he  lay  after  his  long  activities,  suffering  sorely,  and 
longing  for  the  deliverance  of  death,  though  he  was  not 
more,  it  is  supposed,  than  sixty-two  when  the  end  came. 
From  his  sick  bed  he  wrote  to  many  of  his  friends  entreat- 
ing that  they  would  pray  for  him  that  his  sufferings  might 
be  shortened  and  his  sins  forgiven.  He  died  finally  on  the 
12th  of  March,  ever  afterwards  consecrated  to  his  name,  in 
the  year  603.  This  event  must  have  taken  place  in  the 
palace  at  the  Lateran,  which  was  then  the  usual  dwelling  of 
the  Popes.  Here  the  sick  and  dying  man  could  look  out  upon 


i.]  GREGORY  THE  GREAT.  179 

one  of  the  finest  scenes  on  earth,  the  noble  line  of  the  Alban 
Hills  rising  over  the  great  plains  of  the  Campagna,  with  all 
its  broken  lines  of  aqueduct  and  masses  of  ruin.  The  feat- 
ures of  the  landscape  are  the  same,  though  every  accessory 
is  changed,  and  palace  and  basilica  have  both  crumbled  into 
the  dust  of  ages,  to  be  replaced  by  other  and  again  other 
buildings,  handing  down  the  thread  of  historic  continuity 
through  all  the  generations.  There  are  scarcely  any  remains 
of  the  palace  of  the  Popes  itself,  save  one  famous  mosaic, 
copied  from  a  still  earlier  one,  in  which  a  recent  learned 
critic  sees  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  papal  Eome  already 
clearly  set  forth.  But  we  can  scarcely  hope  that  any  thought 
of  the  first  Gregory  will  follow  the  mind  of  the  reader  into 
the  precincts  of  St.  John  of  the  Lateran  Gate.  His  memory 
abides  in  another  place,  in  the  spot  where  stood  his  father's 
house,  where  he  changed  the  lofty  chambers  of  the  Roman 
noble  into  Benedictine  cells,  and  lived  and  wrote  and  mused 
in  the  humility  of  an  obedient  brother.  But  still  more  does 
it  dwell  in  the  little  three-cornered  piazza  before  the  Church 
of  St.  Gregorio,  from  whence  he  sent  forth  the  mission  to 
England  with  issues  which  he  could  never  have  divined  — 
for  who  could  have  told  in  those  days  that  the  savage  Angles 
would  have  overrun  the  world  further  than  ever  Roman 
standard  was  carried  ?  The  shadow  of  the  great  Pope  is 
upon  those  time-worn  steps  where  he  stood  and  blessed  his 
brethren,  with  moisture  in  his  eyes  and  joy  in  his  heart, 
sending  them  forth  upon  the  difficult  and  dangerous  way 
which  he  had  himself  desired  to  tread,  but  from  which  their 
spirits  shrank.  We  have  all  a  sacred  right  to  come  back 
here,  to  share  the  blessing  of  the  saint,  to  remember  the 
constant  affection  he  bore  us,  his  dedication  of  himself  had 
it  been  permitted,  his  never-ending  thought  of  his  angel 
boys  which  has  come  to  such  wonderful  issues.  He  would 
have  been  a  more  attractive  apostle  than  Augustine  had  he 
carried  out  his  first  intention ;  but  still  we  find  his  image 


180 


THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME. 


[CH.  I. 


here,  fatherly,  full  of  natural  tenderness,  interest  and  sym- 
pathy, smiling  back  upon  us  over  a  dozen  centuries  which 
have  changed  everything  —  except  the  historical  record  of 
Pope  Gregory's  blessing  and  his  strong  desire  and  hope. 

He  was  buried  in  St.  Peter's  with  his  predecessors,  but 
his  tomb,  like  so  many  others,  was  destroyed  at  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  great  church,  and  no  memorial  remains. 


PONTE  MOLLB. 


THE  PALATINE. 


CHAPTER    II. 


THE    MONK    HILDEBRAND. 

ris  a  melancholy  thing  looking  back  through  the  long 
depths  of  history  to  find  how  slow  the  progress  is,  even 
if  it  can  be  traced  at  all,  from  one  age  to  another,  and  how, 
though  the  dangers  and  the  evils  to  which  they  are  liable 
change  in  their  character  from  time  to  time,  their  gravity, 
their  hurtfulness,  and  their  rebellion  against  all  that  is  best 
in  morals,  and  most  advantageous  to  humanity,  scarcely 
diminish,  however  completely  altered  the  conditions  may 
be.  We  might  almost  doubt  whether  the  vast  and  as  yet 
undetermined  possibilities  of  the  struggle  which  has  begun 
in  our  days  between  what  is  called  Capital  and  Labour,  the 
theories  held  against  all  experience  and  reason  of  a  rising' 
Socialism,  and  the  mad  folly  of  Anarchism,  which  is  their 
immediate  climax  —  are  not  quite  as  dangerous  to  the  peace 

181 


182  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  nations  as  were  the  tumults  of  an  age  when  every  man 
acted  by  the  infallible  rule  that 

He  should  take  who  had  the  power 
And  he  should  keep  who  can  — 

the  principle  being  entirely  the  same,  though  the  methods 
may  be  different.  This  strange  duration  of  trouble,  equal 
in  intensity  though  different  in  form,  is  specially  manifest 
in  a  history  such  as  that  which  we  take  up  from  one  age  to 
another  in  so  remarkable  a  development  of  life  and'  gov- 
ernment as  Mediseval  Rome.  We  leave  the  city  relieved 
of  some  woes,  soothed  from  some  troubles,  fed  by  much 
charity,  and  weeping  apparently  honest  tears  over  Gregory 
the  first  of  the  name  —  although  that  great  man  was  scarcely 
dead  before  the  crowd  was  taught  to  believe  that  he  had 
impoverished  the  city  by  feeding  them,  and  were  scarcely 
prevented  from  burning  his  library  as  a  wise  and  fit  re- 
venge. Still  it  might  have  been  expected  that  Rome  and 
her  people  would  have  advanced  a  step  upon  the  pedestal 
of  such  a  life  as  that  of  Gregory  :  and  in  fact  he  left  many 
evils  redressed,  the  commonwealth  safer,  and  the  Church 
more  pure. 

But  when  we  turn  the  page  and  come,  four  hundred  years 
later,  to  the  life  of  another  Gregory,  upon  what  a  tumultu- 
ous world  do  we  open  our  eyes :  what  blood,  what  fire,  what 
shouts  and  shrieks  of  conflict :  what  cruelty  and  shame  have 
reigned  between,  and  still  remained,  ever  stronger  than 
any  influence  of  good  men,  or  amelioration  of  knowledge ! 
Heathenism,  save  that  which  is  engrained  in  the  heart  of 
man,  had  passed  away.  There  were  no  more  struggles  with 
the  relics  of  the  classical  past:  the  barbarians  who  came 
down  in  their  hordes  to  overturn  civilisation  had  changed 
into  settled  nations,  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  state  and 
great  imperial  authority  —  shifting  indeed  from  one  race  to 
another,  but  always  upholding  a  central  standard.  All  the 


ii.]  THE  MONK   HILDEBRAND.  183 

known  world  was  nominally  Christian.  It  was  full  of 
monks  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God,  of  priests,  the  ad- 
ministrants  of  the  sacraments,  and  of  bishops  as  important 
as  any  secular  nobles  —  yet  what  a  scene  is  that  upon  which 
we  look  out  through  endless  smoke  of  battle  and  clashing  of 
swords !  Eome,  at  whose  gates  Alaric  and  Attila  once  thun- 
dered, was  almost  less  secure  now,  and  less  easily  visited 
than  when  Huns  and  Goths  overran  the  surrounding  coun- 
try. It  was  encircled  by  castles  of  robber  nobles,  who 
infested  every  road,  sometimes  seizing  the  pilgrims  bound 
for  Eome,  with  their  offerings  great  and  small,  sometimes 
getting  possession  of  these  offerings  in  a  more  thorough  way 
by  the  election  of  a  subject  Pope  taken  from  one  of  their 
families,  and  always  ready  on  every  occasion  to  thrust  their 
swords  into  the  balance  and  crush  everything  like  freedom 
or  purity  either  in  the  Church  or  in  the  city.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  eleventh  century  there  were  two  if  not  three 
Popes  in  Eome.  "  Benedict  IX.  officiated  in  the  church  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  Sylvester  III.  in  St.  Peter's,  and  John  XX. 
in  the  church  of  St.  Mary,"  says  Villemain  in  his  life  of 
Hildebrand :  the  name  of  the  last  does  not  appear  in  the 
lists  of  Platina,  but  the  fact  of  this  profane  rivalry  is  beyond 
doubt. 

The  conflict  was  brought  to  an  end  for  the  moment  by  a 
very  curious  transaction.  A  certain  dignified  ecclesiastic, 
Gratiano  by  name,  the  Cardinal-archdeacon  of  St.  John 
Lateran,  who  happened  to  be  rich,  horrified  by  this  struggle, 
and  not  sufficiently  enlightened  as  to  the  folly  and  sin 
of  doing  evil  that  good  might  come  —  always,  as  all  the 
chronicles  seem  to  allow,  with  the  best  motives  —  bought 
out  the  two  competitors,  and  procured  his  own  election 
under  the  title  of  Gregory  VI.  But  this  mistaken  though 
well-meant  act  had  but  brief  success.  For,  on  the  arrival  in 
1046  of  the  Emperor  Henry  III.  in  Italy,  at  a  council  called 
together  by  his  desire,  Gregory  was  convicted  of  the  strange 


184  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

bargain  he  had  made,  or  according  to  Baronius  of  the  vio- 
lent means  taken  to  enforce  it,  and  was  deposed  accord- 
ingly, along  with  his  two  predecessors.  It  was  this  Pope, 
in  his  exile  and  deprivation,  who  first  brought  in  sight  of  a 
universe  which  he  was  born  to  rule,  a  young  monk  of  Cluny, 
Hildebrand  —  German  by  name,  but  Italian  in  heart  and 
race  —  who  had  already  moved  much  about  the  world  with 
the  extraordinary  freedom  and  general  access  everywhere 
which  we  find  common  to  monks  however  humble  their 
origin.  From  his  monastic  home  in  Rome  he  had  crossed 
the  Alps  more  than  once ;  he  had  been  received  and  made 
himself  known  at  the  imperial  court,  and  was  on  terms  of 
kindness  with  many  great  personages,  though  himself  but 
a  humble  brother  of  his  convent.  No  youthful  cleric  in  our 
modern  world  nowadays  would  find  such  access  everywhere, 
though  it  is  still  possible  that  a  young  Jesuit  for  instance, 
noted  by  his  superiors  for  ability  or  genius,  might  be  handed 
on  from  one  authority  to  another  till  he  reached  the  highest 
circle.  But  it  is  surprising  to  see  how  free  in  their  move- 
ments, how  adventurous  in  their  lives,  the  young  members 
of  a  brotherhood  bound  under  the  most  austere  rule  then 
found  it  possible  to  be. 

Hildebrand  was,  like  so  many  other  great  Churchmen,  a 
child  of  the  people.  He  was  the  son  of  a  carpenter  in  a 
Tuscan  village,  who,  however,  possessed  one  of  those  ties 
with  the  greater  world  which  a  clergy  drawn  from  the  people 
affords  to  the  humblest,  a  brother  or  other  near  relation 
who  was  the  superior  of  a  monastery  in  Rome.  There  the 
little  Tuscan  peasant  took  his  way  in  very  early  years  to 
study  letters,  having  already  given  proof  of  great  intelligence 
such  as  impressed  the  village  and  called  forth  prophecies  of 
the  highest  advancement  to  come.  His  early  education 
brings  us  back  to  the  holy  mount  of  the  Aventine,  on  which 
we  have  already  seen  so  many  interesting  assemblies.  The 
monastery  of  St.  Mary  has  endured  as  little  as  the  house 


ii.]  THE   MONK   HILDEBRAND.  185 

of  Marcella,  though  it  is  supposed  that  in  the  church  of 
S.  Maria  Aventina  there  may  still  remain  some  portion  of 
the  original  buildings.  But  the  beautiful  garden  of  the  Pri- 
orato,  so  great  a  favourite  with  the  lovers  of  the  picturesque, 
guards  for  us,  in  that  fidelity  of  nature  which  time  cannot 
discompose,  the  very  spot  where  that  keen-eyed  boy  must 
have  played,  if  he  ever  played,  or  at  least  must  have  dreamed 
the  dreams  of  an  ambitious  young  visionary,  and  perhaps, 
as  he  looked  out  musing  to  where  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles 
gleamed  afar  on  the  other  side  of  Tiber,  have  received 
the  inheritance  of  that  long  hope  and  vision  which  had 
been  slowly  growing  in  the  minds  of  Popes  and  priests  — 
the  hope  of  making  the  Church  the  mistress  and  arbiter  of 
the  nations,  the  supreme  and  active  judge  among  all  tumults 
of  earthly  politics  and  changes  of  power.  He  was  nourished 
from  his  childhood  in  the  house  of  St.  Peter,  says  the 
biographer  of  the  Act  a  Sanctorum.  It  would  be  more  easy 
to  realise  the  Apostle's  sway,  and  that  of  his  successors,  on 
that  mount  of  vision,  where  day  and  night,  by  sun  and 
moon,  the  great  temple  of  Christendom,  the  centre  of  spiritual 
life,  shone  before  his  eyes,  than  on  any  other  spot.  That 
wonderful  visionary  sovereignty,  the  great  imagination  of  a 
central  power  raised  above  all  the  disturbances  of  worldly 
life,  and  judging  austerely  for  right  and  against  wrong  all 
the  world  over  —  unbiassed,  unaffected  by  meaner  motives, 
the  great  tribunal  from  which  justice  and  mercy  should  go 
forth  over  the  whole  earth  —  could  there  be  a  more  splendid 
ideal  to  fill  the  brain  of  an  ardent  boy?  It  is  seldom 
that  such  an  ideal  is  recognised,  or  such  dreams  as  these 
believed  in.  We  know  how  little  the  Papacy  has  carried  it 
out,  and  how  the  faults  and  weaknesses  even  of  great  men 
have  for  many  centuries  taken  all  possibility  from  it.  But 
it  was  while  that  wonderful  institution  was  still  fully  pos- 
sible, the  devoutest  of  imaginations,  a  dream  such  as  had 
never  been  surpassed  in  splendour  and  glory,  that  young 


186  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP 

Hildebrand  looked  out  to  Peter's  prison  on  the  Janiculum 
opposite,  and  from  thence  to  Peter's  tomb,  and  dreamt  of 
Peter's  white  throne  of  justice  dominating  the  darkness  and 
the  self-seeking  of  an  uneasy  world. 

The  monastery  of  St.  Mary,  a  Benedictine  house,  must 
have  been  noted  in  its  time.  Among  the  teachers  who  in- 
structed its  neophytes  was  that  same  Giovanni  Gratiano  of 
whom  we  have  just  spoken,  the  arch-priest  who  devoted  his 
wealth  to  the  not  ignoble  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  two  false 
and  immoral  Popes :  though  perhaps  his  motives  would 
have  been  less  misconstrued  had  he  not  been  elected  in  their 
place.  And  there  was  also  much  fine  company  at  the  mon- 
astery in  those  days  —  bishops  with  their  suites  travelling 
from  south  and  north,  seeking  the  culture  and  piety  of  Rome 
after  long  banishment  from  intellectual  life  —  and  at  least 
one  great  abbot,  more  important  than  a  bishop,  Odilon  of 
Cluny,  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  monastic  com- 
munities. All  of  these  great  men  would  notice,  no  doubt, 
the  young  nephew  of  the  superior,  the  favourite  of  the  clois- 
ter, upon  whom  many  hopes  were  already  beginning  to  be 
founded,  and  in  whose  education  every  one  loved  to  have  a 
hand.  One  of  these  bishops  was  said  afterwards  to  have 
taught  him  magical  arts,  which  proves  at  least  that  they  took 
a  share  in  the  training  of  the  child  of  the  convent.  At 
what  age  it  was  that  he  was  transferred  to  Cluny  it  is  im- 
possible to  tell.  Dates  do  not  exist  in  Hildebrand's  history 
until  he  becomes  visible  in  the  greater  traffic  of  the  world. 
He  was  born  between  1015  and  1020  —  this  is  the  nearest 
that  we  can  approach  to  accuracy.  He  appears  in  full  light 
of  history  at  the  deposition  of  Gratiano  (Gregory  VI.)  in 
1045.  In  the  meantime  he  passed  through  a  great  many 
developments.  Probably  the  youth  —  eager  to  see  the  world, 
eager  too  to  fulfil  his  vocation,  to  enter  upon  the  mortifica- 
tions and  self-abasement  of  a  monk's  career,  and  to  "  subdue 
the  flesh  "  in  true  monkish  fashion,  as  well  as  by  the  fatigues 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  187 

of  travel  and  the  acquirement  of  learning  —  followed  Odilon 
and  his  train  across  i  monti,  a  favourite  and  familiar,  when 
the  abbot  returned  from  Eome  to  Cluny.  It  could  not  be 
permitted  in  the  monkish  chronicles,  even  to  a  character 
like  that  of  the  austere  Hildebrand  all  brain  and  spirit,  that 
he  had  no  flesh  to  subdue.  And  we  are  not  informed  whether 
it  was  at  his  early  home  on  the  Aventine  or  in  the  great 
French  monastery  that  he  took  the  vows.  The  rule  of  Cluny 
was  specially  severe.  One  poor  half  hour  a  day  was  all 
that  was  permitted  to  the  brothers  for  rest  and  conversation. 
But  this  would  not  matter  much,  we  should  imagine,  to 
young  Hildebrand,  all  on  fire  for  work,  and  full  of  a  thou- 
sand thoughts. 

How  a  youth  of  his  age  got  to  court,  and  was  heard  and 
praised  by  the  great  Emperor  Henry  III.,  the  head  of  Chris- 
tendom, is  not  known.  Perhaps  he  went  in  attendance  on 
his  abbot,  perhaps  as  the  humble  clerk  of  some  elder  brethren 
bearing  a  complaint  or  an  appeal ;  the  legend  goes  that  he 
became  the  tutor  and  playfellow  of  the  little  prince,  Henry's 
son,  until  the  Emperor  had  a  dream  in  which  he  saw  the 
stranger,  with  two  horns  on  his  head,  with  one  of  which  he 
pushed  his  playfellow  into  the  mud  —  significant  and  alarm- 
ing vision  which  was  a  reasonable  cause  for  the  immediate 
banishment  of  Hildebrand.  The  dates,  however,  if  nothing 
else,  make  this  story  impossible,  for  the  fourth  Henry  was 
not  born  within  the  period  named.  At  all  events  the  young 
monk  was  sufficiently  distinguished  to  be  brought  under  the 
Emperor's  notice  and  to  preach  before  him,  though  we  are 
not  informed  elsewhere  that  Hildebrand  had  any  reputation 
as  a  preacher.  He  was  no  doubt  full  of  earnestness  and 
strong  conviction,  and  that  heat  of  youth  which  is  often 
so  attractive  to  the  minds  of  sober  men.  Henry  declared 
that  he  had  heard  no  man  who  preached  the  word  of  God  with 
so  much  faith :  and  the  imperial  opinion  must  have  added 
much  to  his  importance  among  his  contemporaries.  On  the 


188  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME          [CHAP. 

other  hand,  the  great  world  of  Germany  and  its  conditions 
must  have  given  the  young  man  many  and  strange  revela- 
tions. Nowhere  were  the  prelates  so  great  and  powerful, 
nowhere  was  there  so  little  distinction  between  the  Church 
and  the  world.  Many  of  the  clergy  were  married,  and  left, 
sometimes  their  cures,  often  a  fortune  amassed  by  fees  for 
spiritual  offices,  to  their  sons :  and  benefices  were  bought 
and  sofd  like  houses  and  lands,  with  as  little  disguise.  A 
youth  brought  up  in  Rome  would  not  be  easily  astonished 
by  the  lawlessness  of  the  nobles  and  subject  princes  of  the 
empire,  but  the  importance  of  a  central  authority  strong 
enough  to  restrain  and  influence  so  vast  a  sphere,  and  so 
many  conflicting  powers,  must  have  impressed  upon  him 
still  more  forcibly  the  supreme  ideal  of  a  spiritual  rule  more 
powerful  still,  which  should  control  the  nations  as  a  great 
Emperor  controlled  the  electors  who  were  all  but  kings. 
And  we  know  that  it  was  now  that  he  was  first  moved  to 
that  great  indignation,  which  never  died  in  his  mind,  against 
simony  and  clerical  license,  which  were  universally  toler- 
ated, if  not  acknowledged  as  the  ordinary  rule  of  the  age. 
It  was  high  time  that  some  reformer  should  arise. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  the  year  1046,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  deposition  of  Gregory  VI.  for  simony,  that  Hilde- 
brand  first  came  into  the  full  light  of  day.  Curiously 
enough,  the  first  introduction  of  this  great  reformer  of  the 
Church,  the  sworn  enemy  of  everything  simoniacal,  was 
in  the  suite  of  this  Pope  deposed  for  that  sin.  But  in  all 
probability  the  simony  of  Gregory  VI.  was  an  innocent 
error,  and  resulted  rather  from  a  want  of  perception  than 
evil  intention,  of  which  evidently  there  was  none  in  his 
mind.  He  made  up  to  the  rivals  who  held  Rome  in  fee, 
for  the  dues  and  tributes  and  offerings  which  were  all  they 
cared  for,  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  fortune.  If  he  had 
not  profited  by  it  himself,  if  some  one  else  had  been  elected 
Pope,  no  stain  would  have  been  left  upon  his  name :  and  he 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  189 

seems  to  have  laid  down  his  dignities  without  a  murmur : 
but  his  heart  was  broken  by  the  shame  and  bitter  convic- 
tion that  what  he  had  meant  for  good  was  in  reality  the 
very  evil  he  most  condemned.  Henry  proceeded  on  his 
march  to  Eome  after  deposing  the  Pope,  apparently  taking 
Gregory  with  him :  and  there  without  any  protest  from  the 
silenced  and  terrified  people,  nominated  a  German  bishop 
of  his  own  to  the  papal  dignity,  from  whose  hands  he 
himself  afterwards  received  the  imperial  crown.  He  then 
returned  to  Germany,  sweeping  along  with  him  the  deposed 
and  the  newly-elected  Popes,  the  former  attended  in  si- 
lence and  sorrow  by  Hildebrand,  who  never  lost  faith  in 
him,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  spoke  of  him  as  his  master. 

A  stranger  journey  could  scarcely  have  been.  The  trium- 
phant German  priests  and  prelates  surrounding  the  new 
head  of  the  Church,  and  the  handful  of  crestfallen  Italians 
following  the  fallen  fortunes  of  the  other,  must  have  made 
a  strange  and  not  very  peaceful  conjunction.  "Hildebrand 
desired  to  show  reverence  to  his  lord,"  says  one  of  the 
chronicles.  Thus  his  career  began  in  the  deepest  mortifi- 
cation and.  humiliation,  the  forced  subjection  of  the  Church 
which  it  was  his  highest  aim  and  hope  to  see  triumphant, 
to  the  absolute  force  of  the  empire  and  the  powers  of  this 
world. 

Pope  Gregory  reached  his  place  of  exile  on  the  banks  of 
the  Rhine,  with  his  melancholy  train,  in  deep  humility ; 
but  that  exile  was  not  destined  to  be  long.  He  died  there 
within  a  few  months  :  and  his  successor  soon  followed  him 
to  the  grave.  For  a  short  and  disastrous  period  Eome 
seems  to  have  been  left  out  of  the  calculations  altogether, 
and  the  Emperor  named  another  German  bishop,  whom  he 
sent  to  Rome  under  charge  of  the  Marquis,  or  Margrave, 
or  Duke  of  Tuscany  —  for  he  is  called  by  all  these  titles. 
This  Pope,  however,  was  still  more  short-lived,  and  died  in 
three  weeks  after  his  proclamation,  by  poison  it  was  sup- 


190  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

posed.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  bishops  of  Ger- 
many began  to  be  frightened  of  this  magnificent  nomina- 
tion. Whether  it  was  the  judgment  of  God  which  was 
most  to  be  feared,  or  the  poison  of  the  subtle  and  schem- 
ing Romans,  the  prospect  was  not  encouraging.  The  third 
choice  of  Henry  fell  upon  Bruno,  the  bishop  of  Toul,  a  rela- 
tive of  his  own,  and  a  saintly  person  of  commanding  pres- 
ence and  noble  manners.  Bruno,  as  was  natural,  shrank 
from  the  office,  but  after  days  of  prayer  and  fasting  yielded, 
and  was  presented  to  the  ambassadors  from  Eome  as  their 
new  Pope.  Thus  the  head  of  the  Church  was  for  the  third 
time  appointed  by  the  Emperor,  and  the  ancient  privilege 
of  his  election  by  the  Roman  clergy  and  people  swept 
away. 

But  Henry  was  not  now  to  meet  with  complete  submis- 
sion and  compliance,  as  he  had  done  before.  The  young 
Hildebrand  had  shown  no  rebellious  feeling  when  his  master 
was  set  aside :  he  must  have,  like  Gregory,  felt  the  decision 
to  be  just.  And  after  faithful  service  till  the  death  of  the 
exile,  he  had  retired  to  Cluny,  to  his  convent,  pondering 
many  things.  We  are  not  told  what  it  was  that  brought 
him  back  to  Germany  at  this  crisis  of  affairs,  whether  he 
were  sent  to  watch  the  proceedings,  or  upon  some  humbler 
mission,  or  by  the  mere  restlessness  of  an  able  young  man 
thirsting  to  be  employed,  and  the  instinct  of  knowing  when 
and  where  he  was  wanted.  He  reappeared,  however,  sud-  * 
denly  at  the  imperial  court  during  these  proceedings ;  and 
no  doubt  watched  the  summary  appointment  of  the  new 
Pope  with  indignation,  injured  in  his  patriotism  and  in  his 
churchmanship  alike,  by  an  election  in  which  Rome  had  no 
hand,  though  otherwise  not  dissatisfied  with  the  Teutonic 
bishop,  who  was  renowned  both  for  piety  and  learning. 
The  chronicler  pauses  to  describe  Hildebrand  in  this  his 
sudden  reintroduction  to  the  great  world.  "He  was  a 
youth  of  noble  disposition,  clear  mind,  and  a  holy  monk," 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  191 

we  are  told.  It  was  while  Bishop  Bruno  was  still  full  of 
perplexities  and  doubts  that  this  unexpected  counsellor 
appeared,  a  man,  though  young,  already  well  known,  who 
had  been  trained  in  Eome,  and  was  an  authority  upon  the 
customs  and  precedents  of  the  Holy  See.  He  had  been 
one  of  the  closest  attendants  upon  a  Pope,  ana  knew  every- 
thing about  that  high  office  —  there  could  be  no  better 
adviser.  The  anxious  bishop  sent  for  the  young  monk,  and 
Hildebrand  so  impressed  him  with  his  clear  mind  and  high 
conception  of  the  papal  duties,  that  Bruno  begged  him  to 
accompany  him  to  Eome. 

He  answered  boldly,  "I  cannot  go  with  you."  ''Why?" 
said  the  Teuton  prelate  with  amazement.  "  Because  with- 
out canonical  institution,77  said  the  daring  monk,  uby  the 
sole  power  of  the  emperor,  you  are  about  to  seize  the  Church 
of  Eome." 

Bruno  was  greatly  startled  by  this  bold  speech.  It  is 
possible  that  he,  in  his  distant  provincial  bishopric,  had  no 
very  clear  knowledge  of  the  canonical  modes  of  appointing 
a  Pope.  There  were  many  conferences  between  the  monk 
and  the  Pope-elect,  the  young  man  who  was  not  born  to 
hesitate  but  saw  clear  before  him  what  to  do,  and  his  elder 
and  superior,  who  was  neither  so  well  informed  nor  so 
gifted.  Bruno,  however,  if  less  able  and  resolute,  must 
have  been  a  man  of  a  generous  and  candid  mind,  anxious  to 
do  his  duty,  and  ready  to  accept  instruction  as  to  the  best 
method  of  doing  so,  which  was  at  the  same  time  the  noblest 
way  of  getting  over  his  difficulties.  He  appeared  before 
the  great  diet  or  council  assembled  in  Worms,  and  announced 
his  acceptance  of  the  pontificate,  but  only  if  he  were  elected 
to  it  according  to  their  ancient  privileges  by  the  clergy  and 
people  of  Eome.  It  does  not  appear  whether  there  was  any 
resistance  to  this  condition,  but  it  cannot  have  been  of  a 
serious  character,  for  shortly  after,  having  taken  farewell 
of  his  own  episcopate  and  chapter,  he  set  out  for  Eome. 


192  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

This  is  the  account  of  the  incident  given  by  Hildebrand 
himself  when  he  was  the  great  Pope  Gregory,  towards  the 
end  of  his  career.  It  was  his  habit  to  tell  his  attendants 
the  story  of  his  life  in  all  its  varied  scenes,  during  the 
troubled  leisure  of  its  end,  as  old  men  so  often  love  to  do. 
"  Part  I  myself  heard,  and  part  of  it  was  reported  to  me  by 
many  others,"  says  one  of  the  chroniclers.  There  is  another 
account  which  has  no  such  absolute  authority,  but  is  not 
unreasonable  or  unlikely,  of  the  same  episode,  in  which  we 
are  told  that  Bishop  Bruno  on  his  way  to  Rome  turned  aside 
to  visit  Cluny,  of  which  Hildebrand  was  prior,  and  that 
the  monk  boldly  assailed  the  Pope,  upbraiding  him  with 
having  accepted  from  the  hand  of  a  layman  so  great  an 
office,  and  thus  violently  intruded  into  the  government  of 
the  Church.  In  any  case  Hildebrand  was  the  chief  actor 
and  inspirer  of  a  course  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  Bruno 
which  was  at  once  pious  and  politic.  The  papal  robes  which 
he  had  assumed  at  Worms  on  his  first  appointment  were 
taken  off,  the  humble  dress  of  a  pilgrim  assumed,  and  with 
a  reduced  retinue  and  in  modest  guise  the  Pope-elect  took 
his  way  to  Rome.  His  episcopal  council  acquiesced  in  this 
change  of  demeanour,  says  another  chronicler,  which  shows 
how  general  an  impression  Hildebrand7 s  eloquence  and  the 
fervour  of  his  convictions  must  have  made.  It  was  a  slow 
journey  across  the  mountains  lasting  nearly  two  months, 
with  many  lingerings  on  the  way  at  hospitable  monasteries, 
and  towns  where  the  Emperor's  cousin  could  not  but  be  a 
welcome  guest.  Hildebrand,  who  must  have  felt  the  great 
responsibility  of  the  act  which  he  had  counselled,  sent  letter 
after  letter,  whenever  they  paused  on  their  way,  to  Rome, 
describing,  no  doubt  with  all  the  skill  at  his  command,  how 
different  was  this  German  bishop  from  the  others,  how 
scrupulous  he  was  that  his  election  should  be  made  freely  if 
at  all,  in  what  humility  he,  a  personage  of  so  high  a  rank, 
and  so  many  endowments,  was  approaching  Rome,  and  how 


ii.]  THE  MONK   HILDEBRAND.  193 

important  it  was  that  a  proper  reception  should  be  given  to 
a  candidate  so  good,  so  learned,  and  so  fit  in  every  way 
for  the  papal  throne.  Meanwhile  Bishop  Bruno,  anxious 
chiefly  to  conduct  himself  worthily,  and  to  prepare  for 
his  great  charge,  beguiled  the  way  with  prayers  and  pious 
meditations,  not  without  a  certain  timidity  as  it  would 
appear  about  his  reception.  But  this  timidity  turned  out 
to  be  quite  uncalled  for.  His  humble  aspect,  joined  to  his 
high  prestige  as  the  kinsman  of  the  emperor,  and  the  anx- 
ious letters  of  Hildebrand  had  prepared  everything  for 
Bruno's  reception.  The  population  came  out  on  all  sides 
to  greet  his  passage.  Some  of  the  Germans  were  perhaps 
a  little  indignant  with  this  unnecessary  humility,  but  the 
keen  Benedictine  pervaded  and  directed  everything  while 
the  new  Pope,  as  was  befitting  on  the  eve  of  assuming  so 
great  a  responsibility,  was  absorbed  in  holy  thought  and 
prayer.  The  party  had  to  wait  on  the  further  bank  of  the 
Tiber,  which  was  in  flood,  for  some  days,  a  moment  of 
anxious  suspense  in  which  the  pilgrims  watched  the  walls 
and  towers  of  the  great  city  in  which  lay  their  fate  with 
impatience  and  not  without  alarm.  But  as  soon  as  the 
water  fell,  which  it  did  with  miraculous  rapidity,  the  whole 
town,  with  the  clergy  at  its  head,  came  out  to  meet  the 
new-comers,  and  Leo  IX.,  one  of  the  finest  names  in  the 
papal  lists,  entering  barefooted  and  in  all  humility  by 
the  great  doors  of  St.  Peter's,  was  at  once  elected  unani- 
mously, and  received  the  genuine  homage  of  all  Rome.  One 
can  imagine  with  what  high  satisfaction,  yet  with  eyes  ever 
turned  to  the  future,  content  with  no  present  achievement, 
Hildebrand  must  have  watched  the  complete  success  of  his 
plan. 

This  event  took  place,  Villemain  tells  us  (the  early 
chroniclers,  as  has  been  said,  are  most  sparing  of  dates),  in 
1046,  a  year  full  of  events.  Muratori  in  his  annals  gives  it 
as  two  years  later.  Hildebrand  could  not  yet  have  attained 


194  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

his  thirtieth  year  in  either  case.  He  was  so  high  in  favour 
with  the  new  Pope,  to  whom  he  had  been  so  wise  a  guide, 
that  he  was  appointed  at  once  to  the  office  of  Economico,  a 
sort  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  to  the  Court  of  Rome, 
and  at  the  same  time  was  created  Cardinal-archdeacon,  and 
abbot  of  St.  Paul's,  the  great  monastery  outside  the  walls. 
Platina  tells  us  that  he  received  this  charge  as  if  the  Pope 
had  "  divided  with  him  the  care  of  the  keys,  the  one  ruling 
the  church  of  St.  Peter  and  the  other  that  of  St.  Paul." 

That  great  church,  though  but  a  modern  building  now, 
after  the  fire  which  destroyed  it  seventy  years  ago,  and 
standing  on  the  edge  of  the  desolate  Campagna,  is  still  a 
shrine  universally  visited.  The  Campagna  was  not  desolate 
in  Hildebrand's  days,  and  the  church  was  of  the  highest 
distinction,  not  only  as  built  upon  the  spot  of  St.  Paul's 
martyrdom,  but  for  its  own  splendour  and  beauty.  It  is 
imposing  still,  though  so  modern,  and  with  so  few  relics 
of  the  past.  But  the  pilgrim  of  to-day,  who  may  perhaps 
recollect  that  over  its  threshold  Marcella  dragged  herself, 
already  half  dead,  into  that  peace  of  God  which  the  sanct- 
uary afforded  amid  the  sack  and  the  tortures  of  Eome, 
may  add  another  association  if  he  is  so  minded  in  the 
thought  of  the  great  ecclesiastic  who  ruled  here  for  many 
years,  arriving,  full  of  zeal  and  eager  desire  for  universal 
reform,  into  the  midst  of  an  idle  crew  of  depraved  monks, 
who  had  allowed  their  noble  church  to  fall  into  the  state 
of  a  stable,  while  they  themselves  —  a  mysterious  and 
awful  description,  yet  not  perhaps  so  alarming  to  us  as  to 
them  —  "were  served  in  the  refectory  by  women,"  the  first 
and  perhaps  the  only,  instance  of  female  servants  in  a 
monastery.  Hildebrand  made  short  work  of  these  minis- 
trants.  He  had  a  dream  —  which  no  doubt  would  have 
much  effect  on  the  monks,  always  overawed  by  spiritual 
intervention,  however  material  they  might  be  in  mind  or 
habits  —  in  which  St.  Paul  appeared  to  him,  working  hard 


n.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  195 

to  clear  out  and  purify  his  desecrated  church.  The  young 
abbot  immediately  set  about  the  work  indicated  by  the 
Apostle,  "eliminating  all  uncleanness,"  says  his  chronicler : 
"  and  supplying  a  sufficient  amount  of  temperate  food,  he 
gathered  round  him  a  multitude  of  honest  monks  faithful 
to  their  rule." 

Hildebrand's  great  business  powers,  as  we  should  say, 
enabled  him  very  soon  to  put  the  affairs  of  the  convent 
in  order.  The  position  of  the  monastery  outside  the  city 
gates  and  defences,  and  its  thoroughly  disordered  condition, 
had  left  it  open  to  all  the  raids  and  attacks  of  neighbouring 
nobles,  who  had  found  the  corrupt  and  undisciplined  monks 
an  easy  prey ;  but  they  soon  discovered  that  they  had  in  the 
new  abbot  a  very  different  antagonist.  In  these  occupa- 
tions Hildebrand  passed  several  years,  establishing  his 
monastery  on  the  strongest  foundations  of  discipline,  purity, 
and  faith.  Keform  was  what  the  Church  demanded  in 
almost  every  detail  of  its*  work.  Amid  the  agitation  and 
constant  disturbance  outside,  it  had  not  been  possible  to 
keep  order  within,  nor  was  an  abbot  who  had  bought  his 
post  likely  to  attempt  it :  and  a  great  proportion  of  the 
abbots,  bishops,  and  great  functionaries  of  the  Church  had 
bought  their  posts.  In  the  previous  generation  it  had  been 
the  rule.  It  had  become  natural,  and  disturbed  apparently 
no  man's  conscience.  A  conviction,  however,  had  evidently 
arisen  in  the  Church,  working  by  what  influences  we  know 
not,  but  springing  into  flame  by  the  action  of  Hildebrand, 
and  by  his  Pope  Leo,  that  this  state  of  affairs  was  mon- 
strous and  must  come  to  an  end.  The  same  awakening  has 
taken  place  again  and  again  in  the  Church  as  the  necessity 
has  unfortunately  arisen :  and  never  had  it  been  more  neces- 
sary than  now.  Every  kind  of  immorality  had  been  con- 
cealed under  the  austere  folds  of  the  monk's  robe;  the 
parish  priests,  especially  in  Germany,  lived  with  their  wives 
in  a  calm  contempt  of  all  the  Church's  laws  in  that  respect. 


196  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

This,  which  to  us  seems  the  least  of  their  offences,  was  not 
so  in  the  eyes  of  the  new  race  of  Church  reformers.  They 
thought  it  worse  than  ordinary  immoral  relations,  as  coun- 
terfeiting and  claiming  the  title  of  a  lawful  union;  and  to 
the  remedy  of  this  great  declension  from  the  rule  of  the 
Church,  and  of  the  still  greater  scandal  of  simony,  the  new 
Pope's  utmost  energies  were  now  directed. 

A  very  remarkable  raid  of  reformation,  which  really 
seems  the  most  appropriate  term  which  could  be  used,  took 
place  accordingly  in  the  first  year  of  Leo  IX.  's  reign.  We 
do  not  find  Hildebrand  mentioned  as  accompanying  him  in 
his  travels  —  probably  he  was  already  too  deeply  occupied 
with  the  cleansing  out  of  St.  Paul's  physically  and  morally, 
to  leave  Eome,  of  which,  besides,  he  had  the  care,  in  all  its 
external  as  well  as  spiritual  interests,  during  the  Pope's 
absence :  but  no  doubt  he  was  the  chief  inspiration  of  the 
scheme,  and  had  helped  to  organise  all  its  details.  Some- 
thing even  of  the  subtle  snare  in  which  his  own  patron 
Gregory  had  been  caught  was  in  the  plan  with  which*Hilde- 
brand,  thus  gleaning  wisdom  from  suffering,  sent  forth  his 
Pope.  After  holding  various  smaller  councils  in  Italy,  Leo 
crossed  the  mountains  to  France,  where  against  the  wish  of 
the  Emperor,  he  held  a  great  assembly  at  Rheims.  The 
nominal  occasion  of  the  visit  was  the  consecration  of  that 
church  of  St.  Remy,  then  newly  built,  which  is  still  one  of 
the  glories  of  a  city  so  rich  in  architectural  wealth.  The 
body  of  St.  Remy  was  carried,  with  many  wonderful  pro- 
cessions, from  the  monastery  where  it  lay,  going  round  and 
round  the  walls  of  the  mediaeval  town  and  through  its 
streets  with  chants  and  psalms,  with  banner  and  cross, 
until  at  last  it  was  deposited  solemnly  on  an  altar  in  the 
new  building,  now  so  old  and  venerable.  Half  of  France 
had  poured  into  Rheims  for  this  great  festival,  and  followed 
the  steps  of  the  Pope  and  hampered  his  progress  —  for  he 
was  again  and  again  unable  to  proceed  from  the  great 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  197 

throngs  that  blocked  every  street.  This,  however,  though 
a  splendid  ceremony,  and  one  which  evidently  made  much 
impression  on  the  multitude,  was  but  the  preliminary  chap- 
ter. After  the  consecration  came  a  wholly  unexpected  visi- 
tation, the  council  of  Rheims,  which  was  not  concerned 
like  most  other  councils  with  questions  of  doctrine,  but 
of  justice  and  discipline.  The  throne  for  the  Pope  was 
erected  in  the  middle  of  the  nave  of  the  cathedral  —  not, 


PYRAMID   OF  CAIUS   CESTIUS. 


it  need  scarcely  be  said,  the  late  but  splendid  cathedral 
now  existing  —  and  surrounded  in  a  circle  by  the  seats  of 
the  bishops  and  archbishops.  When  all  were  assembled 
the  object  of  the  council  was  stated  —  the  abolition  of 
simony,  and  of  the  usurpation  of  the  priesthood  and  the 
altar  by  laymen,  and  the  various  immoral  practices  which 
had  crept  into  the  shadow  of  the  Church  and  been  tolerated 
or  authorised  there.  The  Pope  in  his  opening  address 
adjured  his  assembled  counsellors  to  help  him  to  root  out 
those  tares  which  choked  the  divine  grain,  and  implored 


198  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

them,  if  any  among  them  had  been  guilty  of  the  sin  of 
simony,  either  by  sale  or  purchase  of  benefices,  that  he 
should  make  a  public  confession  of  his  sin. 

Terrible  moment  for  the  bishops  and  other  prelates,  im- 
mersed in  all  the  affairs  of  their  times  and  no  better  than 
other  men !  The  reader  after  all  these  centuries  can  scarcely 
fail  to  feel  the  thrill  of  alarm,  or  shame,  or  abject  terror 
that  must  have  run  through  that  awful  sitting  as  men 
looked  into  each  other's  faces  and  grew  pale.  The  arch- 
bishop of  Treves  got  up  first  and  declared  his  hands  to  be 
clean,  so  did  the  archbishop  of  Lyons  and  Besanqon.  Well 
for  them !  But  he  of  Kheims  in  his  own  cathedral,  he  who 
must  have  been  in  the  front  of  everything  for  these  few 
triumphant  days  of  festival,  faltered  when  his  turn  came. 
He  begged  that  the  discussion  might  be  adjourned  till  next 
day,  and  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  see  the  Pope  in  pri- 
vate before  making  his  explanations.  It  must  have  been 
with  a  kind  of  grim  benignancy,  and  awful  toleration,  that 
the  delay  was  granted  and  the  inquisition  went  on,  while 
that  great  personage,  one  of  the  first  magnates  of  the 
assembly,  sat  silent,  pondering  all  there  was  against  him 
and  how  little  he  had  to  say  in  his  defence.  The  council 
became  more  lively  after  this  with  accusations  and  counter- 
accusations.  The  bishop  of  Langres  procured  the  deposi- 
tion of  an  abbot  in  his  diocese  for  immoral  conduct;  but 
next  day  was  assailed  himself  of  simony,  adultery,  and  the 
application  of  torture  in  order  to  extort  money.  After  a 
day  or  two  of  discussion  this  prelate  fled,  and  was  finally 
excommunicated.  Pope  Leo  was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled 
with.  And  so  the  long  line  of  prelates  was  gone  through 
with  many  disastrous  consequences  as  the  days  ran  on. 

It  is  less  satisfactory  to  find  him  easily  excommunicating 
rebels  and  opponents  of  the  Emperor,  whose  arms  were  too 
successful  or  their  antagonism  too  important.  Even  the 
best  of  priests  and  Popes  err  sometimes  —  and  to  have  such 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  199 

a  weapon  as  excommunication  at  hand  like  a  thunderbolt 
must  have  been  very  tempting.  Leo  at  the  same  time 
excommunicated  also  the  people  of  Benevento,  who  had 
rebelled  against  the  Emperor,  and  the  archbishop  of 
Ravenna,  who  was  in  rebellion  against  himself. 

The  travels  and  activity  of  this  Pope  on  his  round  of 
examination  and  punishment  were  extraordinary.  He  ap- 
pears in  one  part  of  Italy  after  another :  in  the  far  south, 
in  the  midland  plains,  holding  councils  everywhere,  depos- 
ing bishops,  scourging  the  Church  clean.  Again  he  is  over 
the  hills  in  his  own  country,  meeting  the  Emperor,  as  active 
as  himself,  and  almost  as  earnest  in  his  desire  to  cleanse 
the  Church  of  simony  —  moving  here  and  there,  performing 
all  kinds  of  sacred  functions  from  the  celebration  of  a  feast 
to  the  excommunication  of  a  city.  His  last,  and  as  it 
proved  fatal  enterprise  was  an  expedition  against  the  Nor- 
mans, who  had  got  possession  of  a  great  part  of  Southern 
Italy,  and  against  whom  the  Pope  went,  most  inappropri- 
ately, at  the  head  of  an  army,  made  up  of  the  most  hetero- 
geneous elements,  and  which  collapsed  in  face  of  the  enemy. 
Leo  himself  either  was  made  prisoner  or  took  refuge  in  the 
town  of  Benevento,  which  had  recently,  by  a  bargain  with 
the  Emperor,  become  the  property  of  the  Holy  See.  Here 
he  was  detained  for  nearly  a  year,  more  or  less  voluntarily, 
and  when,  at  length,  he  set  out  for  Rome,  with  a  strong 
escort  of  the  Normans  and  every  mark  of  honour,  it  was 
with  broken  health  and  failing  strength.  He  died  shortly 
after  reaching  his  destination,  in  his  own  great  church, 
having  caused  himself  to  be  carried  there  as  he  grew  worse ; 
and  nothing  could  be  more  imposing  than  the  scene  of  his 
death,  in  St.  Peter's,  which  was  all  hung  with  black  and 
illuminated  with  thousands  of  funeral  lights  for  this  great 
and  solemn  event.  All  Rome  witnessed  his  last  hours  and 
saw  him  die.  He  was  one  of  the  great  Popes,  though  he 
did  not  fully  succeed  even  in  his  own  appropriate  work  of 


200  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Church  reform,  and  failed  altogether  when  he  took,  unfort- 
unately, sword  in  hand.  Not  a  word,  however,  could  be 
said  against  the  purity  of  his  life  and  motives,  and  these 
were  universally  acknowledged,  especially  among  the  Nor- 
mans against  whom  he  led  his  unfortunate  army,  and 
who  worshipped,  while  probably  holding  captive,  their  rash 
invader. 

During  the  eight  years  of  Leo's  popedom  Hildebrand 
had  been  at  the  head  of  affairs  in  Rome,  where  erring 
priests  and  simoniacal  bishops  had  been  not  less  severely 
brought  to  book  than  in  other  places.  He  does  not  seem 
to  have  accompanied  the  Pope  on  any  of  his  many  expedi- 
tions ;  but  with  the  aid  of  a  new  brother-in-arms,  scarcely 
less  powerful  and  able  than  himself,  Peter  Damian,  then 
abbot  of  Eontavellona  and  afterwards  bishop  of  Ostia,  did 
his  best  under  Leo  to  sweep  clean  the  ecclesiastical  world 
in  general  as  he  had  swept  clean  his  own  church  of  St.  Paul. 
When  Leo  died,  Hildebrand  was  one  of  the  three  legates 
sent  to  consult  the  Emperor  as  to  the  choice  of  another 
Pope.  This  was  a  long  and  difficult  business,  since  the 
susceptibilities  of  the  Romans,  anxious  to  preserve  their 
own  real  or  apparent  privilege  of  election,  had  to  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  claims  of  Henry,  who  had  no  idea  of  yielding 
them  in  any  way,  and  who  had  the  power  on  his  side.  The 
selection  seems  to  have  been  finally  made  by  Hildebrand 
rather  than  Henry,  and  was  that  of  Gebehard,  bishop  of 
Aichstadt,  another  wealthy  German  prelate,  also  related  to 
the  Emperor.  Why  he  should  have  consented  to  accept  this 
mission,  however,  he  who  had  so  strongly  declined  to  follow 
Leo  as  the  nominee  of  the  Emperor,  and  made  it  a  condition 
of  his  service  that  the  new  Pope  should  go  humbly  to  Eome 
as  a  pilgrim  to  be  elected  there,  is  unexplained  by  any  of 
the  historians. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1055  that  after  long  delays  and 
much  waiting,  the  Roman  conclave  came  back,  bringing 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  201 

their  Pope  with  them.  But  Victor  II.  was  like  so  many  of 
his  German  predecessors,  short-lived.  His  reign  only  lasted 
two  years,  the  half  of  which  he  seems  to  have  spent  in  Ger- 
many. "  He  was  not  one  who  loved  the  monks, "  and  prob- 
ably Hildebrand  found  that  he  would  do  but  little  with 
one  whose  heart  would  seem  to  have  remained  on  the  other 
side  of  i  monti  —  as  the  Alps  are  continually  called.  No 
second  ambassador  was  sent  to  the  Imperial  Court  for  a 
successor :  for  in  the  fateful  year  1056  the  Emperor  also 
died,  preceding  Victor  to  the  grave  by  a  few  months.  With- 
out pausing  to  consult  the  German  Court,  with  a  haste 
which  proves  their  great  anxiety  to  reassert  themselves, 
the  Roman  clergy  and  people  elected  Frederick,  abbot  of 
Monte  Cassino  and  brother  of  the  existing  prince  of  Tus- 
cany —  Gottfried  of  Lorraine,  the  second  husband  of  Bea- 
trice of  Tuscany  and  step-father  of  Matilda  the  actual  heir 
to  that  powerful  duchy.  Perhaps  a  certain  desire  to  cling 
to  the  only  power  in  Italy  which  could  at  all  protect  them 
against  an  irritated  Imperial  Court  mingled  with  this 
choice:  but  it, was  a  perfectly  natural  and  worthy  one. 
Frederick,  unfortunately,  lived  but  a  few  months,  disap- 
pointing many  hopes,  fie  had  sent  Hildebrand  to  the 
Imperial  Court  to  explain  and  justify  his  election,  but  when 
he  found  his  health  beginning  to  give  way,  a  sort  of  panic 
seems  to  have  seized  him,  and  collecting  round  him  all  the 
representatives  of  priests  and  people  who  could  be  gath- 
ered together,  he  made  them  swear  on  pain  of  excommuni- 
cation to  elect  no  successor  until  the  return  of  Hildebrand. 
He  died  at  Florence  shortly  after. 

There  is  something  monotonous  in  these  brief  records :  a 
great  turmoil  almost  reaching  the  length  of  a  convulsion  for 
the  choice,  and  then  a  short  and  agitated  span,  a  year  or 
two,  sometimes  only  a  month  or  two,  and  all  is  over  and 
the  new  Pope  goes  to  rejoin  the  long  line  of  his  predeces- 
sors. It  was  not,  either,  that  these  were  old  men,  such  as 


202  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

have  so  often  been  chosen  in  later  days,  venerable  fathers 
of  the  Church  whose  age  brought  them  nearer  to  the  grave 
than  the  throne :  —  they  were  all  men  in  the  flower  of  their 
age,  likely  according  to  all  human  probability  to  live  long. 
It  was  not  wonderful  if  the  German  bishops  were  afraid  of 
that  dangerous  elevation  which  seemed  to  carry  with  it  an 
unfailing  fate. 

Hildebrand  was  at  the  German  Court  when  this  sad  news 
reached  him.  He  was  in  the  position,  fascinating  to  most 
men  —  and  he  was  not  superior  to  others  in  this  respect  — 
of  confidant  and  counsellor  to  a  princess  in  the  interesting 
position  of  a  young  widow,  with  a  child,  upon  whose  head 
future  empire  had  already  thrown  its  shadow.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  Empress  Agnes  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  most 
difficult  which  a  woman  could  be  called  on  to  occupy,  sur- 
rounded by  powerful  princes  scarcely  to  be  kept  in  subjec- 
tion by  the  Emperor,  who  was  so  little  more  than  their 
equal,  though  their  sovereign  —  and  altogether  indisposed 
to  accept  the  supremacy  of  a  woman.  There  .is  nothing  in 
which  women  have  done  so  well  in  the  world  as  in  the  great 
art  of  government,  but  the  Empress  Agnes  was  not  one  of 
that  kind.  She  had  to  fall  back  upon  the  support  of  the 
clergy  in  the  midst  of  the  rude  circle  of  potentates  with 
whom  she  had  to  contend,  and  the  visit  of  Hildebrand  with 
his  lofty  views,  his  great  hopes,  his  impetuous  determina- 
tion to  vanquish  evil  with  good,  though  not  perhaps  in  the 
way  recommended  by  the  Apostles,  was  no  doubt  a  wonder- 
ful refreshment  and  interest  to  her  in  the  midst  of  all  her 
struggles.  But  it  was  like  a  thunderbolt  bursting  at  their 
feet  to  hear  of  the  death  of  Frederick  —  (among  the  Popes 
Stephen  IX.) :  and  the  swiftly  following  outburst  in  Eome 
when,  in  a  moment,  in  the  absence  of  any  spirit  strong 
enough  to  control  them,  the  old  methods  were  put  into 
operation,  and  certain  of  the  Koman  nobles  ever  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  an  opportunity  —  with  such  supporters 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  203 

within  the  city  as  terror  or  bribes  could  secure  them,  taking 
the  people  by  surprise  —  procured  the  hurried  election  of  a 
Pope  without  any  qualifications  for  the  office.  Nothing 
could  be  more  dramatic  than  the  entire  episode.  A  young 
Count  of  Tusculum,  a  stronghold  seated  amid  the  ruins  of 
the  old  Koman  city,  above  Frascati,  one  of  a  family  who 
then  seem  to  have  occupied  the  position  afterwards  held  by 
the  Orsinis  and  Colonnas,  was  the  leader  of  this  conspiracy 
and  the  candidate  was  a  certain  Mincio,  Bishop  of  Velletri, 
a  member  of  the  same  family.  The  description  in  Mura- 
tori's  Annals  though  brief  is  very  characteristic. 

"  Gregorio,  son  of  Albanio  Count  Tusculano,  of  Frascati,  along  with 
some  other  powerful  Romans,  having  gained  by  bribes  a  good  part  of 
the  clergy  and  people,  rushed  by  night,  with  a  party  of  armed  followers, 
into  the  Church  of  St.  Peter,  and  there,  with  much  tumult,  elected 
Pope,  Giovanni,  Bishop  of  Velletri,  afterwards  called  Mincio  (a  word 
perhaps  drawn  from  the  French  Mince  and  which  probably  was  the 
original  of  the  phrase  now  used  Minciono,  Minchione),  who  assumed 
the  name  of  Benedict  X.  He  was  a  man  entirely  devoid  of  letters." 

The  sudden  raid  in  the  night,  all  Borne  silent  and  asleep, 
except  the  disturbed  and  hastily  awakened  streets  by  which 
the  party  had  entered  from  across  the  Campagna  and  their 
robber  fortress  among  the  ruins  of  the  classic  Tusculum, 
makes  a  most  curious  and  dramatic  picture.  The  conspira- 
tors had  among  them  certain  so-called  representatives  of 
the  people,  with  a  few  abbots  who  felt  their  seats  insecure 
under  a  reforming  Pope,  and  a  few  priests  very  desirous  of 
shutting  out  all  new  and  disturbing  authority.  They  gath- 
ered hastily  in  the  church  which  suddenly  shone  out  into 
the  darkness  with  flare  of  torch  and  twinkle  of  taper,  while 
the  intruder,  Mincio,  a  lean  and  fantastic  bishop,  with  affec- 
tations of  pose  and  attitude  such  as  his  nickname  implies, 
was  hurried  to  the  altar  by  his  rude  patrons  and  attend- 
ants. He  was  consecrated  by  the  terrified  archpriest  of 
Ostia,  upon  whom  the  Frascati  party  had  somewhere  laid 
violent  hands,  and  who  faltered  through  the  office  half  stu- 


204  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.        [CHAP. 

pefied  by  fear.  It  was  the  privilege  of  the  Bishop  of  Ostia 
to  be  the  officiating  prelate  at  the  great  solemnity  of  a 
Pope's  consecration.  When  he  could  not  be  had  the  care- 
less and  profane  barons  no  doubt  thought  his  subordinate 
would  do  very  well  instead. 

The  news  was  received,  however,  though  with  horror, 
yet  with  a  dignified  self-restraint  by  the  Imperial  Court. 
Hildebrand  set  out  at  once  for  Florence  to  consult  with  the 
Sovereigns  there,  a  royal  family  of  great  importance  in  the 
history  of  Italy,  consisting  of  the  widowed  duchess  Bea- 
trice, her  second  husband  Gottfried  of  Lorraine,  and  her 
young  daughter  Matilda,  the  actual  heiress  of  the  princi- 
pality, all  staunch  supporters  of  the  Church  and  friends  of 
Hildebrand.  That  he  should  take  the  command  of  affairs 
at  this  sudden  crisis  seems  to  have  been  taken  for  granted 
on  all  sides.  A  council  of  many  bishops  "both  German 
and  Italian "  was  called  together  in  Sienna,  where  it  was 
met  by  a  deputation  from  Home,  begging  that  fit  steps 
might  be  taken  to  meet  the  emergency,  and  a  legitimate 
Pope  elected.  The  choice  of  this  Council  fell  upon  the 
Bishop  of  Florence,  "  who  for  wisdom  and  a  good  life  was 
worthy  of  such  a  sublime  dignity ;  "  and  the  new  Pope  was 
escorted  to  Eome  by  a  strong  band  of  Tuscan  soldiers  pow- 
erful enough  to  put  down  all  tumult  or  rebellion  in  the  city. 
The  expedition  paused  at  Sutri,  a  little  town,  just  within 
the  bounds  of  the  papal  possessions,  which  had  already  on 
that  account  been  the]  scene  of  the  confusing  and  painful 
council  which  dethroned  Gregory  VI.  to  destroy  the  strong- 
holds of  the  Counts  of  Tusculum  near  that  spot,  and  make 
an  end  of  their  power.  Mincio,  however,  poor  fantastic 
shadow,  had  no  heart  to  confront  a  duly  elected  Pope,  or 
the  keen  eye  of  Hildebrand,  and  abdicated  at  once  his  ill- 
gotten  power.  His  vague  figure  so  sarcastically  indicated 
has  a  certain  half -comic,  half -rueful  effect,  appearing  amid 
all  these  more  important  forms  and  things,  first  in  the 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  205 

dazzle  of  the  midnight  office,  and  afterwards  in  a  hazy  twi- 
light of  obscurity,  stealing  off,  to  be  seen  no  more,  except 
by  the  keen  country  folk  and  townsmen  of  his  remote 
bishopric  who,  burlando  —  jesting  as  one  is  glad  to  hear 
they  were  able  to  do  amid  all  their  tumults  and  troubles  — 
gave  him  his  nickname,  and  thus  sent  down  to  posterity 
the  fantastic  vision  of  the  momentary  Pope  with  his  minc- 
ing ways  —  no  bad  anti-pope  though  as  Benedict  X.  he 
holds  a  faint  footing  in  the  papal  roll  —  but  a  historical 
burla,  a  mediaeval  joke,  not  without  its  power  to  relieve  the 
grave  chronicle  of  the  time. 

The  tumultuous  public  of  Kome,  which  did  not  care  very 
much  either  way,  yet  felt  this  election  of  the  Pope  to  be 
its  one  remaining  claim  to  importance,  murmured  and 
grumbled  its  best  about  the  interference  of  Tuscany,  a 
neighbour  more  insulting,  when  taking  upon  herself  airs 
of  mastery,  than  a  distant  and  vaguely  magnificent  Em- 
peror ;  and  there  was  an  outcry  against  Hildebrand,  who 
had  erected  "a  new  idol "  in  concert  with  Beatrice  and  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  Romans.  But  it  was  in  reality  Hil- 
debrand himself  who  now  came  to  reign  under  the  shadow 
of  another  insignificant  and  short-lived  Pope.  Nicolas 
II.  and  Alexander  II.  who  followed  were  but  the  formal 
possessors  of  power;  the  true  sway  was  henceforth  in  the 
hands  of  the  ever-watchful  monk,  Cardinal-archdeacon, 
deputy  and  representative  of  the  Holy  See.  It  is  one  of 
the  few  instances  to  be  found  in  the  records  of  the  world 
of  that  elevation  of  the  man  who  can  —  so  strongly  preached 
by  Carlyle  —  to  the  position  which  is  his  natural  right. 
While  Hildebrand  had  been  scouring  the  world,  an  advent- 
urous young  monk,  passing  i  monti  recklessly  as  the  young 
adventurer  now  crosses  the  Atlantic,  more  times  than  could 
be  counted  —  while  he  was,  with  all  the  zeal  of  his  first 
practical  essay  in  reform,  cleaning  out  his  stable  at  St. 
Paul's,  making  his  presence  to  be  felt  in  the  expenditure 


206  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

and  revenues  of  Rome  —  there  had  been,  as  we  have  seen, 
Pope  after  Pope  in  the  seat  of  the  Apostle,  most  of  them 
worthy  enough,  one  at  least,  Leo  IX.,  heroic  in  effort  and 
devotion  —  but  none  of  them  born  to  guide  the  Church 
through  a  great  crisis.  The  hour  and  the  man  had  now 
come. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  presence  of  a  new  and  great 
legislator  became  clearly  visible.  One  of  the  first  acts  of 
Hildebrand,  acting  under  Nicolas,  was  to  hold  a  council  in 
Rome  in  1059,  at  which  many  things  of  importance  were 
decided.  The  reader  will  want  no  argument  to  prove  that 
there  was  urgent  need  of  an  established  and  certain  rule  for 
the  election  of  the  Popes,  a  necessity  constantly  recurring 
and  giving  rise  to  a  continual  struggle.  It  had  been  the 
privilege  of  the  Roman  clergy  and  people;  it  had  become 
a  prerogative  of  the  Emperors;  it  was  exercised  by  both 
together,  the  one  satisfying  itself  with  a  fictitious  co-opera- 
tion and  assent  to  what  the  other  did,  but  neither  contented, 
and  every  vacancy  the  cause  of  a  bitter  and  often  disgrace- 
ful struggle.  The  nominal  election  by  the  clergy  and 
people  was  a  rule  impossible,  and  meant  only  the  temporary 
triumph  of  the  party  which  was  strongest  or  wealthiest  for 
the  moment,  and  could  best  pay  for  the  most  sweet  voices 
of  the  crowd,  or  best  overawe  and  cow  their  opponents. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  action  of  the  secular  power,  the 
selection  or  at  least  nomination  of  a  Pope  —  with  armies 
behind,  if  necessary,  to  carry  out  his  choice  —  by  the 
Emperor  across  the  Alps,  was  a  transaction  subject  to  those 
ordinary  secular  laws,  which  induce  a  superior  in  whatever 
region  of  affairs  to  choose  the  man  who  is  likely  to  be  most 
serviceable  to  himself  and  his  interests  —  interests  which 
were  very  different  from  those  which  are  the  objects  of  the 
Church.  No  man  had  seen  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of 
this  divided  and  inconsistent  authority  more  than  Hilde- 
brand, and  his  determination  to  establish  a  steadfast  and 


II.] 


THE   MONK   HILDEBRAND. 


207 


final  method  for  the  choice  and  election  of  the  first  great 
official  of  the  Church  was  both  wise  and  reasonable.  Per- 
haps it  was  not  without  thought  of  the  expediency  of  break- 
ing away  from  all  precedents,  and  thus  preparing  the  way 


— ,     14*-^ 


<-V^i 

•         ._/••—»*   ^«,  .  . 


TRINITA  DE    MONTI. 


for  a  new  method,  that  he  had,  apparently  on  his  own 
authority,  transferred  in  a  manner,  what  we  may  call  the 
patronage  of  the  Holy  See,  to  Tuscany.  The  moment  was 
propitious  for  such  a  change,  for  there  was  no  Emperor, 
the  heir  of  Henry  III.  being  still  a  child  and  his  mother 
not  powerful  enough  to  interfere. 


208  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

The  new  law  introduced  by  Hildebrand  and  passed  by 
the  council  was  much  the  same  in  its  general  regulations 
as  that  which  still  exists.  There  was  no  solemn  myste- 
rious Conclave,  and  the  details  were  more  simple;  but  the 
rules  of  election  were  virtually  the  same.  The  Cardinal- 
bishops  made  their  choice  first,  which  they  then  submitted 
to  the  other  Cardinals  of  lower  rank.  If  both  were  agreed 
the  name  of  the  Pope-elect  was  submitted  to  the  final  judg- 
ment of  the  people,  no  doubt  a  mere  formula.  This,  we 
believe,  is  nominally  still  the  last  step  of  the  procedure. 
The  name  is  submitted,  i.e.,  announced  to  the  eager  crowd 
in  St.  Peter's  who  applaud,  which  is  all  that  is  required  of 
them :  and  all  is  done.  This  decree  was  passed  salvo  debito 
Jwnore  et  reverentia  delecti  filii  nostri  Henrici,  a  condition 
skilfully  guarded  by  the  promise  to  award  the  same  honour 
(that  is,  of  having  a  voice  in  the  election)  to  those  of  his 
successors  to  whom  the  Holy  See  shall  have  personally 
accorded  the  same  right.  It  was  thus  the  Holy  See  which 
honoured  the  Emperors  by  according  them  a  privilege,  not 
the  Emperors  who  had  any  right  to  nominate,  much  less 
elect,  to  the  Holy  See. 

Other  measures  of  great  importance  for  the  purification 
and  internal  discipline  of  the  Church  were  made  law  by 
this  council,  which  was  held  in  April  1059,  the  year  of  the 
accession  of  Nicolas  II. ;  but  none  of  such  fundamental 
importance  as  this,  or  so  bold  in  their  claim  of  spiritual 
independence.  Hildebrand  must  by  this  time  have  been  in 
the  very  height  of  life,  a  man  of  forty  or  so,  already  matured 
by  much  experience  and  beginning  to  systematise  and  regu- 
late the  dreams  and  plans  of  his  youth.  He  must  have 
known  by  this  time  fully  what  he  wanted  and  what  was,  or 
at  least  ought  to  be,  his  mission  in  the  world.  It  is  very 
doubtful,  however,  we  think,  whether  that  mission  appeared 
to  him  what  it  has  appeared  to  all  the  historians  since  —  a 
deep-laid  and  all-overwhelming  plan  for  the  establishment 


ARCH  OF  TITUS.  To  face  page  208. 


ii.]  THE   MONK  HILDEBRAND.  211 

of  the  Papacy  on  such  a  pinnacle  as  never  crowned  head 
had  attained.  His  purposes  as  understood  by  himself  were 
first  the  cleansing  of  the  Church  —  the  clearing  out  of  all 
the  fleshly  filth  which  had  accumulated  in  it,  as  in  his  own 
noble  Basilica,  rendering  it  useless,  hiding  its  beauty:  and 
second  the  destruction  of  that  system  of  buying  and  selling 
which  went  on  in  the  Holy  Temple  —  worse  than  money- 
changing  and  selling  of  doves,  the  sale  of  the  very  altars  to 
any  unworthy  person  who  could  pay  for  them.  These  were 
his  first  and  greatest  purposes  —  to  make  the  Church  pure 
and  to  make  her  free,  as  perhaps  she  never  has  been,  as 
perhaps,  alas,  she  never  will  wholly  be :  but  yet  the  highest 
aim  for  every  true  churchman  to  pursue. 

These  purposes  were  elevated  and  enlarged  in  his  mind 
by  the  noble  and  beautiful  thought  of  thus  preparing  and 
developing  the  one  great  disinterested  power  in  the  world, 
with  nothing  to  gain,  which  should  arbitrate  in  every  quar- 
rel, and  adjust  contending  claims  and  bring  peace  on  earth, 
instead  of  the  clashing  of  swords ;  the  true  work  of  the  suc- 
cessor of  Peter,  Christ's  Vicar  in  the  world.  This  was  not 
a  dream  of  Hildebrand  alone.  Three  hundred  years  later 
the  great  soul  of  Dante  still  dreamt  of  that  Papa  Angelico, 
the  hope  of  ages,  who  might  one  day  arise  and  set  all  things 
right.  Hildebrand  was  not  of  the  Angelical  type.  He  was 
jiot  that  high  priest  made  of  benign  charity,  and  love  for  all 
men  —  of  whom  the  mediaeval  sages  mused.  But  who  will 
say  that  his  dream,  too,  was  not  of  the  noblest  or  his  ideal 
less  magnanimous  and  great?  Such  an  arbiter  was  wanted 
—  what  words  could  say  how  much?  —  in  all  those  troubled 
and  tumultuous  kingdoms  which  were  struggling  against 
each  other,  overcoming  and  being  overcome,  always  in  dis- 
order, carrying  out  their  human  fate  with  a  constant  accom- 
paniment of  human  groans  and  sufferings  and  tears  —  one 
who  would  set  all  things  right,  who  would  judge  the  cause 
of  the  poor  and  friendless,  who  would  have  power  to  pull 


212  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN    ROME.          [CHAP. 

down  a  tyrant  and  erect  with  blessing  and  honour  a  new 
throne  of  justice  in  his  dishonoured  place.  Have  we  less 
need  of  a  Papa  Angelico  now?  But  unfortunately,1  we 
have  lost  faith  in  the  possibility  of  him,  which  is  a  fate 
which  befalls  so  many  high  ideals  from  age  to  age. 

Did  Hildebrand,  a  proud  man  and  strong,  a  man  full  of 
ambition,  full  of  the  consciousness  of  great  powers  —  did 
he  long  to  grasp  the  reins  of  the  universe  in  his  own  hand? 
to  drive  the  chariots  of  the  sun,  to  direct  everything,  to 
rule  everything,  to  be  more  than  a  king,  and  hold  Emperors 
trembling  before  him?  It  is  very  possible:  in  every  great 
spirit,  until  fully  disenchanted,  something  of  this  desire 
must  exist.  But  that  it  was  not  a  plan  of  ambition  only, 
but  a  great  ideal  which  it  seemed  to  him  well  worth  a  man's 
life  to  carry  out,  there  can,  we  think,  be  no  reasonable 
doubt.  • 

Thus  he  began  his  reign,  in  reality,  though  not  by  title, 
in  Rome.  The  cloisters  were  cleansed  and  the  integrity  of 
the  Church  vindicated,  though  not  by  any  permanent  proc- 
ess, but  one  that  had  to  be  repeated  again  and  again  in 
every  chapter  of  her  history.  The  Popes  were  elected  after 
a  few  stormy  experiments  in  the  manner  he  had  decreed, 
and  the  liberty  of  election  established  and  protected  —  even 
to  some  extent  and  by  moments,  his  Papacy,  that  wonderful 
institution  answered  to  his  ideal,  and  promised  to  fulfil  his 
dream:  until  the  time  came  common  to  all  men,  when  hope 
became  failure,  and  he  had  to  face  the  dust  and  mire  of 
purpose  overthrown.  But  in  the  meantime  no  such  thoughts 

1  It  is  touching  and  pathetic  to  divine,  in  the  present  Pope,  some- 
thing of  that  visionary  and  disinterested  ambition,  that  longing  to 
bless  and  help  the  universe,  which  was  in  those  dreams  of  the  mediaeval 
mind,  prompted  by  a  great  pity,  and  a  love  that  is  half  divine.  Leo 
XIII.  is  too  wise  a  man  to  dream  of  temporal  power  restored,  though 
he  is  a  martyr  to  the  theory  of  it :  but  there  would  seem  to  be  in  his 
old  age  which  makes  it  impossible  if  nothing  else  did,  a  trembling  con- 
sciousness of  capacity  to  be  in  himself  a  Papa  Angelico,  and  gather  us 
all  under  his  wings. 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  213 

were  in  his  mind  as  he  laboured  with  all  the  exhilaration 
of  capacity,  and  with  immense  zeal  and  pains,  at  his  own 
affairs,  which  meant  in  those  days  to  the  Archdeacon  of 
Kome  the  care  of  all  the  Churches.  The  letters  of  the  Pope 
in  Council  which  carried  the  addition  of  the  name  of  that 
humblest  of  his  sons  and  servants,  Hildebrand,  bore  the 
commands  of  such  a  sovereign  as  Hildebrand  dreamt  of, 
to  bishops  and  archbishops  over  all  the  world.  Here  is 
one  of  these  epistles. 

Although  several  unfavourable  reports  have  reached  the  Apostolic 
See  in  respect  to  your  Fraternity  which  cannot  be  rejected  without 
inquiry  —  as,  for  example,  that  you  have  favoured  our  enemies,  and 
have  neglected  pontifical  ordinances :  yet  as  you  have  defended  your- 
self from  these  accusations  by  the  testimony  of  a  witness  of  weight  and 
have  professed  fidelity  to  St.  Peter,  we  are  disposed  to  pass  over  these 
reports  and  to  hope  that  the  testimony  in  your  favour  is  true.  There- 
fore take  care  in  future  so  to  live,  that  your  enemies  shall  have  no 
occasion  to  sadden  us  on  your  account.  Exert  yourself  to  fulfil  the 
hopes  which  the  Apostolical  See  has  formed  of  you  :  reprimand,  entreat 
and  warn  your  glorious  king  that  he  may  not  be  corrupted  by  the 
counsels  of  the  wicked,  who  hope  under  cover  of  our  own  troubles  to 
elude  Apostolic  condemnation.  Let  him  take  care  how  he  resists  the 
sacred  canons,  or  rather  St.  Peter  himself,  thereby  rousing  our  wrath 
against  him,  who  rather  desire  to  love  him  as  the  apple  of  our  eye. 

These  were  high  words  to  be  said  to  a  dubious,  not  well- 
assured  archbishop,  occupying  a  very  high  place  in  the 
Church  and  powerful  for  good  or  for  evil :  but  Hildebrand 
did  not  mince  matters,  whatever  he  might  have  to  say. 

Meanwhile  the  good  Pope,  Nicolas,  went  on  with  his 
charities  while  his  Cardinal  Archdeacon  thundered  in  his 
name.  He  went,  in  the  end  of  his  life,  with  his  court  on 
a  visit  to  the  Normans,  who  had  now,  for  some  time  — 
since  they  defeated  Pope  Leo  before  the  gates  of  Benevento 
and  came  under  the  charm  of  papal  influence,  though  in  the 
person  of  their  prisoner  —  become  the  most  devout  and 
generous  servants  of  the  Papacy:  which  indeed  granted 
them  titles  to  the  sovereignty  of  any  chance  principality 
they  might  pick  up  —  which  was  a  good  equivalent.  When 


214  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  troops  of  Guiscard  escorted  his  Holiness  back  to  Rome 
they  were  so  obliging  as  to  destroy  a  castle  or  two  of  those 
robber  nobles  who  infested  all  the  roads  and  robbed  the 
pilgrims,  and  were,  in  the  midst  of  all  greater  affairs,  like 
a  nest  of  venomous  wasps  about  the  ears  of  the  Roman 
statesmen  and  legislators  —  especially  those  of  the  ever 
turbulent  family  of  Tusculum,  the  Counts  of  Frascati,  who 
kept  watch  afar  upon  the  northern  gates  and  every  pilgrim 
path.  This  Pope  died  soon  after  in  1061  in  Florence,  his 
former  episcopal  see,  which  he  often  revisited  and  loved. 

And  now  came  the  opportunity  for  Hildebrand  to  carry 
out  his  own  bold  law,  and  elect  at  once,  by  the  now  legal 
methods,  a  new  head  to  the  Church.  But  his  coadjutors 
probably  had  not  his  own  courage :  and  though  bold  enough 
under  his  inspiration  to  pass  that  law,  hesitated  to  carry  it 
out.  It  is  said,  too,  that  in  Rome  itself  there  was  the 
strong  opposition  of  a  German  party  really  attached  to  the 
imperial  order,  or  convinced  that  without  the  strong  back- 
ing of  the  empire  the  Church  could  not  stand.  Reluctantly 
Hildebrand  consented  to  send  a  messenger  to  consult  the 
imperial  court,  where  strong  remonstrances  and  appeals 
were  at  once  presented  by  the  Germans  and  Lombards  who 
were  as  little  desirous  of  having  an  Italian  Pope  over  them 
as  the  Romans  were  of  a  Teutonic  one.  The  Empress 
Agnes  had  been  alarmed  probably  by  rumours  in  the  air  of 
her  removal  from  the  regency.  She  had  been  alienated 
from  Hildebrand  by  the  reports  of  his  enemies,  and  no 
doubt  made  to  believe  that  the  rights  of  her  son  must  suffer 
if  any  innovation  was  permitted.  She  forgot  her  usual 
piety  in  her  panic,  and  would  not  so  much  as  receive  Hilde- 
brand's  messenger,  who,  alone  of  all  the  many  deputations 
arriving  on  the  same  errand,  was  left  five  days  (or  seven) 
waiting  at  the  gates  of  the  Palace  —  "For  seven  days  he 
waited  in  the  antechamber  of  the  king,"  says  Muratori  — 
while  the  others  were  admitted  and  listened  to.  This  was 


ii.]  THE  MONK   HILDEBRAND.  215 

too  much  for  Hildebrand,  to  whom  his  envoy,  Cardinal 
Stefano,  returned  full  of  exasperation,  as  was  natural.  The 
Cardinals  with  timidity,  but  sustained  by  Hildebrand's  high 
courage  and  determination,  then  proceeded  to  the  election, 
which  was  duly  confirmed  by  the  people  assembled  in  St. 
Peter's,  and  therefore  perfectly  legal  according  to  the  latest 
law.  We  are  told  much,  however,  of  the  excited  state  of 
Rome  during  the  election,  and  of  the  dislike  of  the  people 
to  the  horde  of  monks,  many  of  them  mendicant,  and  even 
more  or  less  vagabond,  who  were  let  loose  upon  the  city, 
electioneering  agents  of  the  most  violent  kind,  filling  the 
streets  and  churches  with  clamour.  This  wild  army,  obnox- 
ious to  the  citizens,  was  at  Hildebrand's  devotion,  and 
prejudiced  more  than  they  promoted,  his  views  among 
the  crowd. 

"Here  returned  to  the  Komans,"  says  Muratori,  whose 
right  to  speak  on  such  a  subject  will  not  be  doubted,  "  com- 
plete freedom  in  the  election  of  the  Popes,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  not  even  awaiting  the  consent  of  the  Emperors  for 
their  consecration ;  an  independence  ever  maintained  since, 
down  to  our  own  days."  This  daring  act  made  a  wonderful 
revolution  in  the  politics  of  Rome :  it  was  the  first  erection 
of  her  standard  of  independence.  The  Church  had  neither 
troops  nor  vassals  upon  whom  she  could  rely,  and  to  defy 
thus  openly  the  forces  of  the  Empire  was  a  tremendous 
step  to  take.  Nor  was  it  only  from  Germany  that  danger 
threatened.  Lombardy  and  all  the  north  of  Italy  was, 
with  the  exception  of  Tuscany,  in  arms  against  the  auda- 
cious monk.  Only  those  chivalrous  savages  of  Normans, 
who,  however,  were  as  good  soldiers  as  any  Germans,  could 
be  calculated  on  as  faithful  to  the  Holy  See :  and  Godfried 
of  Tuscany  stood  between  Rome  and  her  enemies  Jidelissimo, 
ready  to  ward  off  any  blow. 

The  election  passed  over  quietly,  and  Alexander  II. 
(Anselm  the  Bishop  of  Lucca)  took  his  place,  every  par- 


216  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

ticular  of  his  assumption  of  the  new  dignity  being  carefully 
carried  through  as  though  in  times  of  deepest  peace.  In 
Germany,  however,  the  news  produced  a  great  sensation 
and  tumult.  A  Diet  was  held  at  Bale,  for  the  coronation 
in  the  first  place  of  the  young  king  Henry,  now  twelve 
years  old  —  but  still  more  for  the  immediate  settlement  of 
this  unheard-of  revolt.  When  that  ceremonial  was  over 
the  court  proceeded  to  the  choice  of  a  Pope  with  a  con- 
temptuous indifference  to  the  proceedings  in  Eome.  This 
anti-pope  has  no  respect  from  history.  He  is  said  by  one 
authority  to  have  been  chosen  because  his  evil  life  made 
him  safe  against  any  such  fury  of  reform  as  that  which 
made  careless  prelate  and  priest  fall  under  the  rod  of  Hil- 
debrand  on  every  side.  Muratori,  whose  concise  little  sen- 
tences are  always  so  refreshing  after  the  redundancy  of 
the  monkish  chronicles,  is  very  contemptuous  of  this  pre- 
tender, whose  name  was  Cadalous  or  Cadulo,  an  undistin- 
guished and  ill-sounding  name.  "  The  anti-pope  Cadaloo  or 
Cadalo  occupied  himself  all  the  winter  of  this  year  "  (says 
Muratori)  "  in  collecting  troops  and  money,  in  order  to  pro- 
ceed to  Eome  to  drive  out  the  legitimate  successor  of  St. 
Peter  and  to  have  himself  consecrated  there.  Some  suppose 
that  he  had  already  been  ordained  Pope,  and  had  assumed 
the  name  of  Honorius  II.,  but  there  is  no  proof  of  this. 
And  if  he  did  not  change  his  name  it  is  a  sign  that  he  had 
never  been  consecrated."  Other  authorities  boldly  give 
him  the  title  of  Honorius  II. :  but  he  is  generally  called 
the  anti-pope  Cadalous  in  history. 

A  conflict  immediately  arose  between  the  two  parties. 
Cadalous,  at  the  head  of  an  army  appeared  before  Kome, 
but  not  till  after  Hildebrand  had  placed  his  Pope,  who  was 
for  the  moment  less  strong  than  the  Emperor's  Pope,  in 
Tuscany  under  the  protection  of  Beatrice  and  her  husband 
Godfried.  Then  followed  a  stormy  time  of  marches  and 
countermarches  round  and  about  the  city,  in  which,  some- 


ii.]  THE   MONK   HILDEBRAND.  217 

times  the  invaders  were  successful  and  sometimes  the 
defenders.  At  length  the  Tuscans  came  to  the  rescue  with 
the  two  Countesses  in  their  midst  who  were  always  so  faith- 
ful in  their  devotion  to  Hildebrand,  Beatrice  in  the  maturity 
of  her  beauty  and  influence,  and  the  young  Matilda,  the 
real  sovereign  of  the  Tuscan  states,  fifteen  years  old,  radiant 
in  hope  and  enthusiasm  and  stirring  up  the  spirits  of  the 
Florentines  and  Tuscan  men  at  arms.  Cadalous  withdrew 
from  that  encounter  making  such  terms  as  he  could  with 
Godfried,  with  many  prayers  and  large  presents,  so  that  he 
was  allowed  to  escape  to  Parma  his  bishopric,  testa  bassa. 
Yet  the  records  are  not  Very  clear  on  these  points,  Mura- 
tori  tells  us.  Doubts  are  thrown  on  the  loyalty  of  Duke 
Godfried.  He  is  said  to  have  invited  the  Normans  to  come 
to  the  help  of  the  Pope,  and  then  invaded  their  territories, 
which  was  not  a  very  knightly  proceeding :  but  there  is  no 
appearance  at  this  particular  moment  of  the  Normans,  or 
any  force  but  that  of  the  Tuscan  army  with  young  Countess 
Matilda  and  her  mother  flashing  light  and  courage  into  the 
ranks. 

The  anti-pope,  if  he  deserved  that  title,  did  not  trouble 
the  legitimate  authorities  long.  He  was  suddenly  dropped 
by  the  Germans  in  the  excitement  of  a  revolution,  originat- 
ing in  the  theft  of  little  Henry  the  boy-monarch,  whom 
the  Bishop  of  Cologne  stole  from  his  mother  Agnes,  as  it 
became  long  afterwards  a  pleasant  device  of  state  to  carry 
off  from  their  mothers  the  young  fatherless  Jameses  of 
Scots  history.  Young  Henry  was  run  away  with  in  the 
same  way,  and  Agnes  humiliated  and  cast  off  by  the  Teu- 
tonic nobility,  who  forgot  all  about  such  a  trifle  as  a  Pope 
in  the  heat  of  their  own  affairs.  It  was  only  when  this 
matter  was  settled  that  a  council  was  held  in  Cologne  by 
the  archbishop  who  had  been  the  chief  agent  in  the  abduc- 
tion of  Henry,  and  was  now  first  in  power.  Of  this  council 
there  seems  no  authoritative  record.  It  is  only  by  the 


218  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

answer  to  its  deliberations  published  by  Peter  Damian  in 
which,  as  is  natural,  that  able  controversialist  has  an  easy 
victory  over  the  other  side  —  that  anything  is  known  of  it. 
Whether  Cadalous  was  formerly  deposed  by  this  council  is 
not  known:  but  he  was  dropped  by  the  authorities  of  the 
Empire  which  had  a  similar  result. 

Notwithstanding,  this  rash  pretender  made  one  other 
vain  attempt  to  seize  the  papal  throne,  being  encouraged 
by  various  partisans  in  Kome  itself,  by  whose  means  he 
got  possession  of  St.  Peter's,  where  the  unfortunate  man 
remained  for  one  troubled  night,  making  such  appeals  to 
God  and  to  his  supporters  as  may  be  imagined,  and  furtively 
performing  the  various  offices  of  the  nocturnal  service,  per- 
haps not  without  a  sense  of  profanation  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  had  stolen  into  the  great  darkness  and  silence  of 
the  Basilica  to  meet  him,  with  a  political  rather  than  a 
devotional  intention.  Next  day  all  Rome  heard  the  news, 
and  rising  seized  its  arms  and  drove  his  handful  of  defend- 
ers out  of  the  city.  Cadalous  was  taken  by  one  of  his 
supporters,  Cencio  or  Vincencio  "  son  of  the  prsefect "  to  St. 
Angelo,  where  he  held  out  against  the  Romans  for  the  space 
of  two  years,  suffering  many  privations ;  and  thence  escap- 
ing on  pain  of  his  life  after  other  adventures,  disappears 
into  the  darkness  to  be  seen  no  more. 

This  first  distinct  conflict  between  Rome  and  the  Empire 
was  the  beginning  of  the  long-continued  struggle  which  tore 
Italy  asunder  for  generations  —  the  strife  of  the  two  parties 
called  .Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  the  one  for  the  Empire,  the 
other  for  the  Church,  with  all  the  ramifications  of  that 
great  question. 

The  year  in  which  Cadalous  first  appeared  in  Rome, 
which  was  the  year  1062,  was  also  distinguished  by  a  very 
different  visitor.  The  Empress  Agnes  deprived  of  her  son, 
shorn  of  her  power,  had  nothing  more  to  do  among  the 
subject  princes  who  had  turned  against  her.  She  deter- 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  219 

mined,  as  dethroned  monarchs  are  apt  to  do,  to  cast  off  the 
world  which  had  rejected  her,  and  came  to  Eome,  to  beg 
pardon  of  the  Pope  and  find  a  refuge  for  herself  out  of  the 
noise  and  tumult.  She  had  been  in  Eome  once  before,  a 
young  wife  in  all  the  pomp  and  pride  of  empire,  conducted 
through  its  streets  in  the  midst  of  a  splendid  procession, 
with  her  husband  to  be  crowned.  The  strongest  contrasts 
pleased  the  fancy  of  these  days.  She  entered  Rome  the 
second  time  as  a  penitent  in  a  black  robe,  and  mounted 
upon  the  sorriest  horse  —  "  it  was  not  to  call  a  horse,  but 
like  a  beast  of  burden,  a  donkey,  no  bigger  than  an  ass." 
It  is  a  curious  sign  of  humiliation  and  accompanying  eleva- 
tion of  mind,  but  this  is  not  the  first  time  that  we  have 
heard  of  a  pilgrim  entering  Eome  on  a  miserable  hack,  as 
if  that  were  the  highest  sign  of  humility.  She  was  received 
with  enthusiasm,  notwithstanding  her  late  actions  of  hos- 
tility, and  soon  the  walls  of  many  churches  were  radiant 
with  the  spoils  of  her  imperial  toilettes,  brocades  of  gold 
and  silver  encrusted  with  jewels,  and  wonders  of  rich  stuffs 
which  even  Peter  Damian  with  his  accomplished  pen  finds 
it  difficult  to  describe.  "She  laid  down  everything, 
destroyed  everything,  in  order  to  become,  in  her  depriva- 
tion yet  freedom,  the  bride  of  Christ."  We  are  not  told  if 
Agnes  entered  a  convent  or  only  lived  the  life  of  a  religious 
person  in  her  own  house ;  but  she  had  the  frequent  company 
of  Hildebrand  and  Peter  Damian,  and  of  the  Bishop  of 
Como,  who  seems  to  have  been  devoted  to  her  service;  and 
perhaps  like  other  penitents  was  not  so  badly  off  in  her 
humility,  thus  delivered  out  of  all  the  tumults  against 
which  she  had  so  vainly  attempted  to  make  head  for  years. 
While  these  smaller  affairs  —  for  even  the  anti-pope  never 
seems  to  have  been  really  dangerous  to  Eome  notwith- 
standing his  many  efforts  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  Church 
—  the  world  of  Christendom  which  surrounded  that  one 
steady  though  constantly  contested  throne  of  the  papacy, 


220  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

was  in  commotion  everywhere.     It  seems  strange  to  speak 
in  one  breath  of  Hildebrand's  great  and  noble  ideal  of  a 


THE  VILLA  BORGHESE. 


throne  always  standing  for  righteousness,  and  of  a  sacred 
monarch  supreme  and  high  above  all  worldly  motives, 
dispensing  justice  and  peace:  and  in  the  next  to  confess 


n.]  THE  MONK   HILDEBRAND.  221 

his  perfect  acquiescence  in,  and  indeed  .encouragement  of, 
the  undertaking  of  William  the  Conqueror,  so  manifest  an 
act  of  tyranny  and  robbery,  and  interference  with  the  rights 
of  an  independent  nation,  an  undertaking  only  different 
from  those  of  the  brigands  from  Tusculum  and  other  robber 
castles  who  swept  the  roads  to  Rome,  by  the  fact  of  its 
much  higher  importance  and  its  complete  success.  The 
Popes  had  sanctioned  the  raids  of  the  Normans  in  Italy, 
and  confirmed  to  them  by  legal  title  the  possessions  which 
they  had  taken  by  the  strong  hand :  with  perhaps  a  convic- 
tion that  one  strong  rule  was  better  than  the  perpetual 
bloodshed  of  the  frays  between  the  existing  races  —  the 
duke  here,  the  marquis  there,  all  seeking  their  own,  and 
no  man  thinking  of  his  neighbour's  or  his  people's  advan- 
tage. But  the  internal  discords  of  England  were  too  far  off 
to  secure  the  observation  of  the  Pope,  and  the  mere  fact 
of  Harold's  renunciation  in  favour  of  William,  though  it 
seems  so  specious  a  pretence  to  us,  was  to  the  eyes  of  the 
priests  by  far  the  most  important  incident  in  the  matter,  a 
vow  taken  at  the  altar  and  which  therefore  the  servants  of 
the  altar  were  bound  to  see  carried  out.  These  two  reasons 
however  were  precisely  such  as  show  the  disadvantage  of 
that  grand  papal  ideal  which  was  burning  in  Hildebrand's 
brain ;  for  a  Pope,  with  a  sacred  authority  to  set  up  and 
pull  down,  should  never  be  too  far  off  to  understand  the 
full  rights  of  any  question  were  it  in  the  remotest  parts  of 
the  earth :  and  should  be  far  above  the  possibility  of  having 
his  judgment  confused  by  a  foregone  ecclesiastical  prejudice 
in  favour  of  an  unjust  vow. 

Hildebrand  however  not  only  gave  William,  in  his  great 
stroke  for  an  empire,  the  tremendous  support  of  the  Pope's 
authority  but  backed  him.  up  in  many  of  his  most  high- 
handed and  arbitrary  proceedings  against  the  Saxon  prelates 
and  rich  abbeys  which  the  Conqueror  spoiled  at  his  pleasure. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten,  in  respect  to  these  latter  spolia- 


222  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

tions,  that  the  internal  war  which  was  raging  in  the  Church 
all  over  the  world,  between  the  new  race  of  reformers  and 
the  mass  of  ordinary  clergy  —  who  had  committed  many 
ecclesiastical  crimes,  who  sometimes  even  had  married  and 
were  comfortable  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  sluggish  toleration, 
or  formed  connections  that  were  winked  at  by  a  contemptu- 
ously sympathetic  world ;  or  who  had  bought  their  benefices 
great  and  small,  through  an  entangled  system  of  gifts, 
graces,  and  indulgences,  as  well  as  by  the  boldest  simony 
—  made  every  kind  of  revolution  within  the  Church  pos- 
sible, and  produced  endless  depositions  and  substitutions 
on  every  side.  When,  as  we  have  seen,  the  bishop  of  a 
great  continental  see  in  the  centre  of  civilisation  could  be 
turned  out  remorselessly  from  his  bishopric  on  conviction 
of  any  of  these  common  crimes  and  forced  into  the  Cloister 
to  amend  his  ways  and  end  his  life,  it  is  scarcely  likely 
that  more  consideration  would  be  shown  for  an  unknown 
prelate  far  away  across  the  Northern  seas,  though  it  would 
seem  to  be  insubordination  rather  than  any  ecclesiastical 
vice  with  which  the  Saxon  clergy  were  chiefly  charged. 
This  first  instance  however  of  the  papal  right  to  sanction 
revolution,  and  substitute  one  claimant  for  another  as  the 
selection  of  Heaven,  is  perhaps  the  strongest  proof  that 
could  be  found  of  the  impossibility  of  that  ideal,  and  of  the 
tribunal  thus  set  up  over  human  thrones  and  human  rights. 
The  papal  see  was  thus  drawn  in  to  approve  and  uphold 
one  of  the  most  bloody  invasions  and  one  of  the  most  cruel 
conquests  ever  known  —  and  did  so  with  a  confidence  and 
certainty,  in  an  ignorance,  and  with  a  bias,  which  makes 
an  end  of  all  those  lofty  pretensions  to  perfect  impartiality 
and  a  judgment  beyond  all  influences  of  passion  which 
alone  could  justify  its  existence. 

A  great  change  had  come  over  the  firmament  since  the 
days  when  Leo  IX.  cleansed  the  Church  at  Kheims,  and 
held  that  wonderful  Council  which  set  down  so  many  of  the 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  223 

mighty  from  their  seats.  Henry  III.,  the  enemy  of  simony, 
was  dead,  and  the  world  had  changed.  As  we  shall  often 
have  occasion  to  remark,  the  papal  rule  of  justice  and  purity 
was  strong  and  succeeded  —  so  long  as  the  forces  of  the 
secular  powers  agreed  with  it.  But  when,  as  time  went  on, 
the  Church  found  itself  in  conflict  with  these  secular  powers, 
a  very  different  state  of  affairs  ensued. 

The  action  of  Borne  in  opposition1  to  the  young  Henry 
IV.,  was  as  legitimate  as  had  been  its  general  agreement 
with,  and  approval  of,  his  predecessor.  The  youth  of  this 
monarch  had  developed  into  ways  very  different  from  those 
of  his  father,  and  under  his  long  minority  all  the  evils 
which  Henry  III.  had  honestly  set  his  face  against,  reap- 
peared in  full  force.  Whether  it  was  his  removal  from  the 
natural  and  at  least  pure  government  of  his  mother,  or  from 
his  native  disposition  which  no  authority  or  training  had  a 
chance  in  such  circumstances  of  repressing,  the  young  Henry 
grew  up  dissolute  and  vicious,  and  his  court  was  the  centre 
of  a  wild  and  disorganised  society.  Married  at  twenty,  it 
was  not  very  long  before  he  tried  by  the  most  disreputable 
means  to  get  rid  of  his  young  wife,  and  failing  in  that, 
called,  or  procured  to  be  called  by  a  complaisant  arch- 
bishop, a  council,  in  order  to  rid  him  of  her.  Borne  lost 
no  time  in  sending  off  to  this  council  as  legate,  Peter 
Damian  whose  gift  of  speech  was  so  unquestionable  that 
he  could  even  on  occasion  make  the  worse  appear  the  better 
cause.  But  his  cause  in  the  present  case  was  excellent, 
and  his  eloquence  no  less  so,  and  he  had  all  that  was  pru- 
dent as  well  as  all  that  was  wise  and  good  in  Germany  on 
his  side,  notwithstanding  the  complaisance  of  the  priests. 
The  legate  remonstrated,  exhorted,  threatened.  The  thing 
Henry  desired  was  a  thing  unworthy  of  a  Christian,  it  was 
a  fatal  example  to  the  world;  finally  no  power  on  earth 
would  induce  the  Pope,  whose  hands  alone  could  confer 
that  consecration,  to  crown  as  Eoman  Emperor  a  man  who 


224  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

had  sinned  so  flagrantly  against  the  laws  of  God.  The 
great  German  nobles  added  practical  arguments  not  less 
urgent  in  their  way;  and  Henry  surrounded  on  all  sides 
with  warnings  was  forced  to  give  way.  But  this  downfall 
for  the  moment  had  little  effect  on  the  behaviour  of  the 
young  potentate,  and  his  vices  were  such  that  his  immediate 
vassals  in  his  own  country  were  on  the  point  of  universal 
rebellion,  no  man's  castle  or  goods  or  wife  or  daughter 
being  safe.  The  Church,  which  his  father  had  given  so 
much  care  and  pains  to  cleanse  and  purify,  sank  again  into 
the  rankest  simony,  every  stall  in  a  cathedral,  and  cure  in 
a  bishopric  selling  like  articles  of  merchandise.  It  was 
time  in  the  natural  course  of  affairs  when  the  young  mon- 
arch attained  the  full  age  of  manhood  that  he  should  be 
promoted  to  the  final  dignity  of  emperor,  and  consecrated 
as  such  —  a  rite  which  only  the  Pope  could  perform :  and 
no  doubt  it  was  with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  power  thus 
resting  with  the  Holy  See,  as  well  as  in  consequence  of 
numerous  informal  but  eager  appeals  to  the  Pope  against 
the  ever-increasing  evils  of  his  sway  that  Hildebrand  pro- 
ceeded to  take  such  a  step  as  had  never  been  ventured  on 
before  by  the  boldest  of  Churchmen.  He  summoned  Henry 
formally  to  appear  before  the  papal  court  and  defend  him- 
self against  the  accusations  brought  against  him.  "For 
the  heresy  of  simony,"  says  the  papal  letter,  this  being  the 
great  ecclesiastical  crime  which  came  immediately  under 
the  cognizance  of  the  Pope. 

This  citation  addressed  to  the  greatest  monarch  then 
existing,  and  by  a  power  but  barely  escaped  from  his 
authority  and  still  owing  to  him  a  certain  allegiance,  was 
enough  to  thrill  the  world  from  end  to  end.  Such  a  thing 
had  never  happened  in  the  knowledge  of  man.  But  before 
we  begin  so  much  as  to  hear  of  the  effect  produced,  the 
Pope  who  had,  nominally  at  least,  issued  the  summons, 
the  good  and  saintly  Alexander  II.,  after  holding  the 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  225 

papacy  for  twelve  years,  died  on  the  21st  of  April,  1073, 
His  reign  for  that  time  had  been  to  a  great  degree  the  reign 
of  Hildebrand,  the  ever  watchful,  ever  laborious  archdeacon, 
who,  let  the  Pope  travel  as  he  liked  —  and  his  expeditions 
through  Italy  were  many  —  was  always  vigilant  at  his  post, 
always  in  the  centre  of  affairs,  with  eyes  and  ears  open 
to  everything,  and  a  mind  always  intent  on  its  purpose. 
Hildebrand' s  great  idea  of  the  position  and  duties  of  the 
Holy  See  had  developed  much  in  those  twelve  years.  -  It 
had  begun  to  appear  a  fact,  in  the  eyes  of  those  especially 
who  had  need  of  its  support.  The  Normans  everywhere 
believed  and  trusted  in  it,  with  good  secular  reason  for  so 
doing,  and  they  were  at  the  moment  a  great  power  in  the 
earth,  especially  in  Italy.  If  it  had  not  already  acquired 
an  importance  and  force  in  the  thoughts  of  men,  more 
subtle  and  less  easy  to  obtain  than  external  power,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  the  boldest  to  launch  forth  a 
summons  to  the  greatest  king  of  Christendom  the  future 
Emperor.  Already  the  first  step  towards  that  great  vis- 
ionary sway,  of  which  poets  and  sages,  as  well  as  ecclesi- 
astics, so  long  had  dreamed,  had  been  made. 

Hildebrand  had  been  virtually  at  the  head  o±  affairs  since 
the  year  1055,  when  he  had  brought  across  the  Alps  Victor 
II.  chosen  by  himself,  whose  acts  and  policy  were  his.  He 
might  have  attained  the  papacy  in  his  own  right  on  more 
than  one  occasion  had  he  been  so  minded,  but  had  persist- 
ently held  back  from  the  rank  while  keeping  the  power. 
But  now  humility  would  have  been  cowardice,  and  in  the 
face  of  the  tremendous  contest  which  he  had  invited  no 
other  course  was  possible  to  him  save  to  assume  the  full 
responsibility.  Even  before  the  ceremonies  of  the  funeral 
of  the  Pope  were  completed,  while  Alexander  lay  in  state, 
there  was  a  rush  of  the  people  and  priests  to  the  church  of 
the  Lateran,  where  Hildebrand  was  watching  by  the  bier, 
shouting  "Hildebrand!  The  blessed  St.  Peter  has  elected 

Q 


226  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERX  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Hildebrand."  A  strange  scene  of  mingled  enthusiasm  and 
excitement  broke  the  funereal  silence  in  the  great  solemn 
church,  amid  its  forest  of  columns  all  hung  with  black, 
and  glittering  with  the  silver  ornaments  which  are  appro- 
priate to  mourning,  while  still  the  catafalque  upon  which 
the  dead  Pope  lay  rose  imposing  before  the  altar.  Hilde- 
brand, startled,  was  about  to  ascend  the  pulpit  to  address 
the  people,  but  was  forestalled  by  an  eager  bishop  who 
hurried  into  it  before  him,  to  make  solemn  announcement 
of  the  event.  "The  Archdeacon  is  the  man  who,  since  the 
time  of  the  holy  Pope  Leo,  has  by  his  wisdom  and  experi- 
ence contributed  most  to  the  exaltation  of  the  Church, 
and  has  delivered  this  town  from  great  danger, "  he  cried. 
The  people  responded  by  shouts  of  "  St.  Peter  has  chosen 
Hildebrand!  "  We  all  know  how  entirely  fallacious  is  this 
manner  of  testing  the  sentiment  of  a  people;  but  yet  it 
was  the  ancient  way,  the  method  adopted  in  those  ear- 
lier times  when  every  Christian  was  a  tried  and  tested 
man,  having  himself  gone  through  many  sufferings  for  the 
faith. 

It  appears  that  Hildebrand  hesitated,  which  seems  strange 
in  such  a  man;  one  who,  if  ever  man  there  was,  had  the 
courage  of  his  opinions  and  was  not  likely  to  shrink 
from  the  position  he  himself  had  created;  and  it  is  almost 
incredible  that  he  should  have  sent  a  sort  of  appeal,  as 
Muratori  states,  to  Henry  himself  —  the  very  person  whom 
he  had  so  boldly  summoned  before  the  tribunal  of  the 
Church  —  requesting  him  to  withhold  his  sanction  from 
the  election.  Muratori  considers  the  evidence  dubious,  we 
are  glad  to  see,  for  this  strange  statement.  At  all  events, 
after  a  momentary  hesitation  Hildebrand  yielded  to  the 
entreaties  of  the  people.  The  decree  in  which  his  election 
is  recorded  is  absolutely  simple  in  its  narrative. 

"  The  day  of  the  burial  of  our  lord,  the  Pope  Alexander 
II.  (22nd  April,  1073),  we  being  assembled  in  the  Basilica 


ii.]  THE  MONK  HILDEBRAND.  227 

of  San  Pietro  in  Vincoli,1  members  of  the  holy  Koman 
Church  catholic  and  apostolic,  cardinals,  bishops,  clerks, 
acolytes,  sub-deacons,  deacons,  priests  —  in  presence  of  the 
venerable  bishops  and  abbots,  by  consent  of  the  monks, 
and  accompanied  by  the  acclamations  of  a  numerous  crowd 
of  both  sexes  and  of  divers  orders,  we  elect  as  pastor  and 
sovereign  pontiff  a  man  of  religion,  strong  in  the  double 
knowledge  of  things  human  and  divine,  the  love  of  justice 
and  equity,  brave  in  misfortune,  moderate  in  good  fortune, 
and  following  the  words  of  the  apostle,  a  good  man,  chaste, 
modest,  temperate,  hospitable,  ruling  well  his  own  house, 
nobly  trained  and  instructed  from  his  childhood  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Church,  promoted  by  the  merit  of  his  life  to 
the  highest  rank  in  the  Church,  the  Archdeacon  Hildebrand, 
whom,  for  the  future  and  for  ever,  we  choose ;  and  we  name 
him  Gregory,  Pope.  Will  you  have  him?  Yes,  we  will 
have  him.  Do  you  approve  our  act?  Yes,  we  approve." 

Nothing  can  be  more  graphic  than  this  straightforward 
document,  and  nothing  could  give  a  clearer  or  more  pict- 
uresque view  of  the  primitive  popular  election.  The 
wide-reaching  crowd  behind,  women  as  well  as  men,  a  most 
remarkable  detail,  filled  to  its  very  doors  the  long  length 
of  the  Basilica.  The  little  group  of  cardinals  and  their 
followers  made  a  glow  of  colour  in  the  midst :  the  mass 
of  clergy  in  the  centre  of  the  great  have  lighted  up  by 
bishops  and  abbots  in  their  distinctive  dresses  and  darken- 
ing into  the  surrounding  background  of  almost  innumerable 
monks:  while  the  whole  assembly  listened  breathless  to 
this  simple  yet  stately  declaration,  few  understanding  the 

1  It  is  supposed  by  some  from  this  that  the  election  took  place  in 
this  church  and  not  in  the  Lateran  ;  but  that  is  contradicted  by  Gregory 
himself,  who  says  it  took  place  in  Ecclesia  S.  Salvatoris,  a  name  fre- 
quently used  for  the  Lateran.  Bowden  suggests  that  "  at  the  close  of 
the  tumultuous  proceedings  in  the  Lateran  the  cardinal  clergy"  may 
have  "adjourned  to  St.  Peter  ad  Vincula  formally  to  ratify  and 
register  the  election." 


228 


THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 


words,  though,  all  knew  the  meaning,  the  large  Latin 
phrases  rolling  over  their  heads:  until  it  came  to  that 
well-known  name  of  Hildebrand  —  Ildebrando  —  which 
woke  a  sudden  storm  of  shouts  and  outcries.  Will  you 
have  this  man?  Yes,  we  will  have  him!  Do  you  approve? 
Approviamo  !  Approviamo  I  shouted  and  shrieked  the  crowd. 
So  were  the  elections  made  in  Venice  long  years  after, 
under  the  dim  arches  of  St.  Marco;  but  Venice  was  still  a 


WHERE   THE   GHETTO    STOOD. 


straggling  village,  fringing  a  lagoon,  when  this  great  scene 
took  place. 

Hildebrand  was  at  this  time  a  man  between  fifty  and 
sixty,  having  spent  the  last  eighteen  years  of  his  life  in 
the  control  and  management  of  the  affairs  of  Borne.  He 
was  a  small,  spare  man  of  the  most  abstemious  habits, 
allowing  himself  as  few  indulgences  in  the  halls  of  the 
Lateran  as  in  a  monastic  cell.  His  fare  was  vegetables, 
although  he  was  no  vegetarian  in  our  modern  sense  of  the 
word,  but  ate  that  food  to  mortify  the  flesh  and  for  no 
better  reason.  Not  long  before  he  made  the  rueful,  and  to 


ii.]  THE   MONK  HILDEBRAND.  229 

us  comic,  confession  that  he  had  "  ended  by  giving  up  leeks 
and  onions,  having  scruples  on  account  of  their  flavour, 
which  was  agreeable  to  him."  Scruple  could  scarcely  go 
further  in  respect  to  the  delights  of  this  world.  We  are 
glad  however  that  he  who  was  now  the  great  Pope  Gregory 
denied  himself  that  onion.  It  was  a  dignified  act  and 
sacrifice  to  the  necessities  of  his  great  position. 


FROM  SAN  GREGORIO  MAGNO. 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE    POPE    GREGORY   VII. 

THE  career  of  Hildebrand  up  to  the  moment  in  which,  he 
ascended  the  papal  throne  could  scarcely  be  called  other 
than  a  successful  one.  He  had  attained  many  of  his  aims. 
He  had  awakened  the  better  part  of  the  Church  to  a  sense 
of  the  vices  that  had  grown  up  in  her  midst,  purified  in 
many  quarters  the  lives  of  her  priests,  and  elevated  the 
mind  and  ideal  of  Christendom.  But  bad  as  the  vices  of 
the  clergy  were,  the  ruling  curse  of  simony  was  worse,  to  a 
man  whose  prevailing  dream  and  hope  was  that  of  a  great 
power  holding  up  over  all  the  world  the  standards  of  truth 
and  righteousness  in  the  midst  of  the  wrongs  and  conten- 
tions of  men.  A  poor  German  priest  holding  fast  in  his 
distant  corner  by  the  humble  wife  or  half-permitted  female 
companion  at  whose  presence  law  and  charity  winked,  was 
indeed  a  dreadful  thought,  meaning  dishonour  and  sacrilege 
to  the  austere  monk ;  but  the  bishops  and  archbishops  over 
him  who  were  so  little  different  from  the  fierce  barons,  their 

230 


CH.  in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  231 

kin  and  compeers,  who  had  procured  their  benefices  by  the 
same  intrigues,  the  same  tributes  and  subserviences,  the  same 
violence,  by  which  these  barons  in  many  cases  held  their 
fiefs,  how  was  it  possible  that  such  men  could  hold  the  bal- 
ance of  justice,  and  promote  peace  and  purity  and  the  reign 
of  God  over  the  world  ?  That  they  should  help  in  any  way 
in  that  great  mission  which  the  new  Pope  felt  himself  to 
have  received  from  the  Head  of  the  Church  was  almost 
beyond  hope.  They  vexed  his  soul  wherever  he  turned, 
men  with  no  motive,  no  inspiration  beyond  that  of  their 
fellows,  ready  to  scheme  and  struggle  for  the  aggrandise- 
ment of  the  Church,  if  you  will — for  the  increase  of  their 
own  greatness  and  power  and  those  of  the  corporations  sub- 
ject to  them:  but  as  little  conscious  of  that  other  and  holier 
ambition,  that  hope  and  dream  of  a  reign  of  righteousness, 
as  were  their  fellows  and  brethren,  the  dukes  and  counts, 
the  fighting  men,  the  ambitious  princes  of  Germany  and 
Lombardy.  Until  the  order  of  chiefs  and  princes  of  the 
Church  could  be  purified,  Hildebrand  had  known,  and  Greg- 
ory felt  to  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  that  nothing  effectual 
could  be  done. 

The  Cardinal  Archdeacon  of  Rome,  under  Popes  less  in- 
spired than  himself  —  who  were,  however,  if  not  strong 
enough  to  originate,  at  least  acquiescent,  and  willing  to 
adopt  and  sanction  what  he  did — had  carried  on  a  holy 
war  against  simony  wherever  found.  He  had  condemned  it 
by  means  of  repeated  councils,  he  had  poured  forth  every 
kind  of  appeal  to  men's  consciences,  and  exhortations  to 
repentance,  without  making  very  much  impression.  The 
greatest  offices  were  still  sold  in  spite  of  him.  They  were 
given  to  tonsured  ruffians  and  debauchees  who  had  no  claim 
but  their  wealth  to  ascend  into  the  high  places  of  the  Church, 
and  who,  in  short,  were  but  secular  nobles  with  a  difference, 
and  the  fatal  addition  of  a  cynicism  almost  beyond  belief, 
though  singularly  mingled  at  times  with  superstitious  ter- 


232  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

rors.  Hildebrand  had  struggled  against  these  men  and 
their  influence  desperately,  by  every  means  in  his  power: 
and  Pope  Gregory,  with  stronger  methods  at  command,  was 
bound,  if  possible,  to  extirpate  the  evil.  This  had  raised 
him  up  a  phalanx  of  enemies  on  every  side,  wherever  there 
was  a  dignitary  of  the  Church  whose  title  was  not  clear,  or  a 
prince  who  derived  a  portion  of  his  revenue  from  the  traffic 
in  ecclesiastical  appointments.  The  degenerate  young  King 
not  yet  Emperor,  who  supported  his  every  scheme  of 
rapine  and  conquest  by  the  gold  of  the  ambitious  priests 
whom  he  made  into  prelates  at  his  will,  was  naturally  the 
first  of  these  enemies :  Guibert  of  Eavenna,  more  near  and 
readily  offensive,  one  of  the  most  powerful  ecclesiastical 
nobles  in  Italy,  sat  watchful  if  he  might  catch  the  new 
Pope  tripping,  or  find  any  opportunity  of  accusing  him : 
Robert  Guiscard,  the  greatest  of  the  Normans,  who  had 
been  so  much  the  servant  and  partisan  of  the  late  Popes, 
remained  sullen  and  apart,  giving  no  allegiance  to  this: 
Eome  itself  was  surrounded  by  a  fierce  and  audacious  nobil- 
ity, who  had  always  been  the  natural  enemies  of  the  Pope, 
unless  when  he  happened  to  be  their  nominee,  and  more 
objectionable  than  themselves.  Thus  the  world  was  full  of 
dark  and  scowling  faces.  A  circle  of  hostility  both  at  his 
gates  and  in  the  distance  frowned  unkindly  about  him,  when 
the  age  of  Hildebrand  was  over,  and  that  of  Gregory  began. 
All  his  great  troubles  and  sufferings  were  in  this  latter  part 
of  his  life.  Nothing  in  the  shape  of  failure  had  befallen  him 
up  to  this  point.  He  had  met  with  great  respect  and  hon- 
our, his  merit  and  power  had  been  recognised  almost  from 
his  earliest  years.  Great  princes  and  great  men  —  Henry 
himself,  the  father  of  the  present  degenerate  Henry,  a  noble 
Emperor,  honouring  the  Church  and  eager  for  its  purification 
—  had  felt  themselves  honoured  by  the  friendship  of  the 
monk  who  had  neither  family  nor  wealth  to  recommend 
him.  But  when  Pope  Gregory  issued  from  his  long  proba- 


in.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  233 

tion  and  took  into  his  hand  the  papal  sceptre,  all  these 
things  had  changed.  Whether  he  was  aware  by  any  pre- 
monition of  the  darker  days  upon  which  he  had  now  fallen 
who  can  say  ?  It  is  certain  that  confronting  them  he  bated 
no  jot  of  heart  or  hope. 

He  appears  to  us  at  first  as  very  cautious,  very  desirous 
of  giving  the  adversary  no  occasion  to  blaspheme.  The 
summons  issued  in  the  name  of  the  late  Pope  to  Henry  re- 
quiring him  to  appear  and  answer  in  Home  the  charges 
made  against  him,  seems  to  have  been  dropped  at  Alexan- 
der's death :  and  when  his  messengers  came  over  the  Alps 
demanding  by  what  right  a  Pope  had  been  consecrated  with- 
out his  consent,  Gregory  made  mild  reply  that  he  was  not 
consecrated,  but  was  awaiting  not  the  nomination  but  the 
consent  of  the  Emperor,  and  that  not  till  that  had  been 
received  would  he  carry  out  the  final  rites.  These  were 
eventually  performed  with  some  sort  of  acquiescence  from 
Henry,  given  through  his  wise  and  prudent  ambassador,  on 
the  Feast  of  St.  Peter,  the  29th  June,  1073.  Gregory  did 
what  he  could,  as  appears,  to  continue  this  mild  treatment 
of  Henry  with  all  regard  to  his  great  position  and  power. 
He  attempted  to  call  together  a  very  intimate  council  to  dis- 
cuss the  state  of  affairs  between  the  King  and  himself :  a 
council  of  singular  construction,  which,  but  that  the  ques- 
tions as  to  the  influence  and  place  of  women  are  questions 
as  old  as  history,  and  have  been  decided  by  every  age  accord- 
ing to  no  formal  law  but  the  character  of  the  individuals  be- 
fore them,  might  be  taken  for  an  example  of  enlightenment 
before  his  time  in  Gregory's  mind.  He  invited  Duke  Rudolf 
of  Suabia,  one  of  Henry's  greatest  subjects,  a  man  of  relig- 
ious character  and  much  reverence  for  the  Holy  See,  to  come 
to  Rome,  and  in  common  with  himself,  the  Empress  Agnes, 
the  two  Countesses  of  Tuscany,  the  Bishop  of  Como  (who 
was  the  confessor  of  Agnes),  and  other  God-fearing  persons, 
to  consider  the  crisis  at  which  the  Church  had  arrived?  and 


234:  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  hear  and  give  advice  upon  the  Pope's  intentions  and 
projects.  The  French  historian  Yillemain  throws  discredit 
upon  this  projected  consultation  of  "  an  ambitious  vassal  of 
the  King  of  Germany  and  three  women,  one  of  whom  had 
once  been  a  prisoner  in  the  camp  of  Henry  III.,  the  other 
had  been  brought  up  from  infancy  in  the  hate  of  the  empire 
and  the  love  of  the  Church,  and  the  last  was  a  fallen  em- 
press who  was  more  the  penitent  of  Rome  than  the  mother 
of  Henry."  This  seems,  however,  a  futile  enumeration. 
There  could  surely  be  no  better  defender  found  for  a  son 
accused  than  his  mother,  who  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
was  ever  estranged  from  him  personally,  and  who  shortly 
after  went  upon  an  embassy  to  him,  and  was  received  with 
every  honour.  Beatrice,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been  the 
prisoner  of  his  father  the  great  Emperor,  and  not  of  young 
Henry  of  whom  she  was  the  relative  and  friend,  and  between 
whom  and  the  Pope,  as  all  good  statesmen  must  have  seen, 
it  was  of  the  greatest  importance  to  Europe  that  there  should 
be  peace ;  while  any  strong  personal  feeling  which  might 
exist  would  be  modified  by  Gregory  himself,  by  Eaymond 
of  Como,  and  the  wisest  heads  of  Rome. 

But  this  board  of  advice  and  conciliation  never  sat,  so  we 
need  not  comment  upon  its  possible  concomitants.  In  every 
act  of  his  first  year,  however,  Gregory  showed  a  desire  to 
conciliate  Henry  rather  than  to  defy  him.  The  young  king 
had  his  hands  very  full,  and  his  great  struggle  with  the 
Saxon  nobles  and  people  was  not  at  the  moment  turning  in 
his  favour.  And  he  had  various  natural  defenders  and 
partisans  about  the  Roman  Court.  The  Abbot  Hugo  of 
Cluny,  who  was  one  of  Gregory's  dearest  friends,  had  been 
the  young  king's  preceptor,  and  bore  him  a  strong  affection. 
We  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  influence  of  Agnes 
was  not  all  on  the  side  of  her  son,  if  not  to  support  his  acts, 
at  least  to  palliate  and  excuse  them.  With  one  of  these  in 
his  most  intimate  council,  and  one  an  anxious  watcher  out- 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  235 

side,  both  in  command  of  his  ear  and  attention,  it  would 
have  been  strange  if  Gregory  had  been  unwilling  to  hear 
anything  that  was  in  Henry's  favour. 

And  in  fact  something  almost  more  than  a  full  reconcilia- 
tion seems  to  have  been  effected  between  the  new  Pope  and 
the  young  king,  so  desirous  of  winning  the  imperial  crown, 
and  conscious  that  Gregory's  help  was  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance to  him.  Henry  on  his  side  wrote  a  letter  to  his 
"most  loving  lord  and  father,"  his  "most  desired  lord," 
breathing  such  an  exemplary  mind,  so  much  penitence  and 
submission,  that  Gregory  describes  it  as  "  full  of  sweetness 
and  obedience  : "  while  the  Pope,  if  not  altogether  removing 
the  sword  that  hung  suspended  over  Henry's  head,  at  least 
received  his  communications  graciously,  and  gave  him  full 
time  and  encouragement  to  change  his  mind  and  become 
the  most  trusted  lieutenant  of  the  Holy  See.  The  King 
was  accordingly  left  free  to  pursue  his  own  affairs  and  his 
great  struggle  with  the  Saxons  without  any  further  ques- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  interference :  while  Gregory  spent  the 
whole  ensuing  year  in  a  visitation  of  Italy,  and  much  corre- 
spondence and  conference  on  the  subject  of  simony  and 
other  abuses  in  the  Church.  When  he  returned  to  Kome 
he  endeavoured,  but  in  vain,  to  act  as  peacemaker  between 
Henry  and  the  Saxons.  And  it  was  not  till  June  in  the 
year  1074,  when  he  called  together  the  first  of  the  Lateran 
Councils,  an  assembly  afterwards  renewed  yearly,  a  sort  of 
potential  Convocation,  that  further  steps  were  taken.  With 
this  the  first  note  of  the  great  warfare  to  follow  was  struck. 
The  seriousness  of  the  letters  by  which  he  summoned  its 
members  sufficiently  shows  the  importance  attached  to  it. 

"The  princes  and  governors  of  this  world,  seeking  their  own  interest 
and  not  that  of  Jesus  Christ,  trample  under  foot  all  the  veneration  they 
owe  to  the  Church,  and  oppress  her  like  a  slave.  The  priests  and  those 
charged  with  the  conduct  of  the  Church  sacrifice,  the  law  of  God,  re- 
nounce their  obligations  towards  God  and  their  flocks,  seeking  in  eccle- 
siastical dignities  only  the  glory  of  this  world,  and  consuming  in  pomp 


236  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

and  pride  what  ought  to  serve  for  the  salvation  of  many.  The  people, 
without  prelates  or  sage  counsellors  to  lead  them  in  the  way  of  virtue, 
and  who  are  instructed  by  the  example  of  their  chiefs  in  all  pernicious 
things,  go  astray  into  every  evil  way,  and  bear  the  name  of  Christian 
without  its  works,  without  even  preserving  the  principle  of  the  faith. 
For  these  reasons,  confident  in  the  mercies  of  God,  we  have  resolved 
to  assemble  a  Synod  in  order  to  seek  with  the  aid  of  our  brethren  for 
a  remedy  to  these  evils,  and  that  we  may  not  see  in  our  time  the  irrep- 
arable ruin  and  destruction  of  the  Church.  Wherefore  we  pray  you 
as  a  brother,  and  warn  you  in  the  name  of  the  blessed  Peter,  prince  of 
apostles,  to  appear  at  the  day  fixed,  convoking  by  this  letter,  and  by 
your  own,  your  suffragan  bishops  ;  for  we  can  vindicate  the  freedom 
of  religion  and  of  ecclesiastical  authority  with  much  more  surety  and 
strength  according  as  we  find  ourselves  surrounded  by  the  counsels  of 
your  prudence,  and  by  the  presence  of  our  brethren." 

A  few  Italian  princes,  Gisulfo  of  Salerno,  Azzo  d'  Este, 
Beatrice  and  Matilda  of  Tuscany,  were  convoked  to  the 
council  and  held  seats  in  it.  The  measures  passed  were 
very  explicit  and  clear.  They  condemned  the  simoniacal 
clergy  in  every  rank,  deposing  them  from  their  positions 
and  commanding  them  to  withdraw  from  the  ministrations 
of  the  altar.  The  same  judgment  was  passed  upon  those 
who  lived  with  wives  or  concubines.  Both  classes  were 
put  beyond  the  pale  of  the  Church,  and  the  people  were 
forbidden,  on  pain  of  sharing  their  doom,  to  receive  the 
sacraments  from  them,  or  to  yield  them  obedience.  Nothing 
more  thorough  and  far-reaching  could  be.  Hitherto  the 
Popes  had  proceeded  by  courts  of  investigation,  by  exami- 
nation of  individuals,  in  which  the  alternative  of  repentance 
and  renunciation  was  always  open  to  the  prelate  who  had 
perhaps  inadvertently  fallen  into  these  crimes.  But  such 
gentle  dealings  had  been  but  very  partially  successful. 
Here  and  there  an  archbishop  or  great  abbot  had  been 
convicted  by  his  peers,  and  made  to  descend  from  his  high 
estate  —  here  and  there  a  great  personage  had  risen  in  his 
place  and  made  confession.  Some  had  retired  to  the  cloister, 
putting  all  their  pomps  and  glories  aside,  and  made  a  good 
end.  But  as  is  usual  after  every  religious  revival,  life  had 
risen  up  again  and  gone  upon  its  usual  course,  and  the 


in.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  237 

bishoprics  thus  vacated  had  probably  been  sold  to  the  high- 
est bidder  or  yielded  to  the  most  violent  assailant,  as  if  no 
such  reformation  had  ever  been. 

The  matter  had  gone  too  far  now  for  any  such  occasional 
alleviations  ;  and  Gregory  struck  at  the  whole  body  of  proud 
prelates,  lords  of  secular  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  greatness, 
men  whose  position  was  as  powerful  in  politics  and  the 
affairs  of  the  empire  as  was  that  of  the  princes  and  mar- 
graves who  were  their  kin,  and  whom  they  naturally  sup- 
ported —  as  the  others  had  supported  them  by  money  and 
influence  in  their  rise  to  power :  but  who  had  very  little 
time  for  the  affairs  of  the  Church,  and  less  still  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  peace  and  the  redress  of  wrong. 

The  other  measures  passed  at  this  council  were  more 
searching  still ;  they  were  aimed  against  the  disorders  into 
which  the  clergy  had  fallen,  and  chiefly  what  was  to  Greg- 
ory and  his  followers  the  great  criminality,  of  married  priests, 
who  abounded  in  the  Church.  In  this  the  lower  orders  of 
the  clergy  were  chiefly  assailed,  for  the  more  important 
members  of  the  hierarchy  did  not  marry  though  they  might 
be  vicious  otherwise.  But  the  rural  priests,  the  little-edu- 
cated and  but  little-esteemed  clerks  who  abounded  in  every 
town  and  village,  were  very  generally  affected  by  the  vice  — 
if  vice  it  was  —  of  marriage,  which  was  half  legal  and  widely 
tolerated:  and  their  determination  not  to  abandon  it  was 
furious.  Meetings  of  the  clergy  to  oppose  this  condemna- 
tion were  held  in  all  quarters,  and  often  ended  in  riot,  the 
priests  declaring  that  none  of  the  good  things  of  the  Church 
fell  to  their  lot,  but  that  rather  than  give  up  their  wives, 
their  sole  compensation,  they  would  die.  This  was  not 
likely  to  make  Gregory's  proceedings  less  determined :  but 
it  may  easily  be  imagined  what  a  prodigious  convulsion  such 
an  edict  was  likely  to  make  in  the  ecclesiastical  world. 

It  is  said  by  the  later  historians  that  the  Empress  Agnes 
was  made  use  of,  with  her  attendant  bishop  and  confessor, 


238  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  carry  these  decrees  to  Henry's  court :  though  this  does 
not  seem  to  be  sanctioned  by  the  elder  authorities,  who  place 
the  mission  of  Agnes  in  the  previous  year,  and  reckon  it 
altogether  one  of  peace  and  conciliation.  But  Henry  still 
continued  in  a  conciliatory  frame  of  mind.  His  own  affairs 
were  not  going  well,  and  he  was  anxious  to  retain  the  Pope's 
support  in  the  midst  of  his  conflicts  with  his  subjects. 
Neither  do  the  great  dignitaries  appear  to  have  made  any 
public  protest  or  resistance  :  it  was  the  poor  priests  upon 
whom  individually  this  edict  pressed  heavily,  who  were 
roused  almost  to  the  point  of  insurrection. 

One  of  the  most  curious  effects  of  the  decree  was  the  spirit 
roused  among  the  laity  thus  encouraged  to  judge  and  even 
to  refuse  the  ministrations  of  an  unworthy  priest.  Not 
only  was  their  immediate  conduct  affected  to  acts  of  spritual 
insubordination,  but  a  fundamental  change  seems  to  have 
taken  place  in  their  conception  of  the  priest's  character. 
No  doubt  Gregory's  legislation  must  have  originated  that 
determined  though  illogical  opposition  to  a  married  priest- 
hood, and  disgust  with  the  idea,  which  has  had  so  singular 
a  sway  in  Catholic  countries  ever  since,  and  which  would  at 
the  present  moment  we  believe  make  any  change  in  the  celi- 
bate character  of  the  priesthood  impossible  even  were  all 
other  difficulties  overcome.  We  are  not  aware  that  it  had 
existed  in  any  force  before.  The  thing  had  been  almost  too 
common  for  remark  :  and  there  seems  to  have  been  no  fierce 
opposition  to  the  principle.  It  arose  now  gradually  yet 
with  a  force  beyond  control :  there  were  many  cases  of  lay- 
men baptizing  their  children  themselves,  rather  then  give 
them  into  the  hands  of  a  polluted  priest  —  until  there  arose 
almost  a  risk  of  general  indifference  to  this  sacrament  be- 
cause of  tho  rising  conviction  that  the  hands  which  adminis- 
tered it  were  unworthy :  and  other  religious  observances 
were  neglected  in  the  same  way,  an  effect  which  must 
have  been  the  reverse  of  anything  intended  by  the  Pope. 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  239 

To  this  hour  in  all  Catholic  countries  an  inexpressible  dis- 
gust with  the  thought,  mingles  even  with  the  theory  that 
perhaps  society  might  be  improved  were  the  priest  a  mar- 
ried man,  and  so  far  forced  to  content  himself  with  the 
affairs  of  his  own  house.  Probably  it  was  Gregory's  strong 
denunciation,  and  his  charge  to  the  people  not  to  reverence, 
not  to  obey  men  so  soiled :  as  well  as  the  conviction  long 
cultivated  by  the  Church,  and  by  this  time  become  a  dogma, 
that  the  ascetic  life  was  in  all  cases  the  holiest  —  which 
originated  this  powerful  general  sentiment,  more  potent  in 
deciding  the  fact  of  a  celibate  clergy  than  all  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal decrees  in  the  world. 

In  the  second  Lateran  Council  held  in  the  next  year,  at 
the  beginning  of  Lent,  along  with  the  reiteration  of  the 
laws  in  respect  to  simony  and  the  priesthood,  a  solemn 
decree  against  lay  investiture  was  passed  by  the  Church. 
This  law  transferred  the  struggle  to  a  higher  ground.  It 
was  no  longer  bishops  and  prelates  of  all  classes,  no  longer 
simple  priests,  but  the  greatest  sovereigns,  all  of  whom  had 
as  a  matter  of  course  given  ecclesiastical  benefices  as  they 
gave  feudals  fiefs,  who  were  now  involved.  The  law  was 
as  follows : 

"Whosoever  shall  receive  from  the  hands  of  a  layman 
a  bishopric,  or  an  abbey,  shall  not  be  counted  among  the 
bishops  and  abbots,  nor  share  their  privileges.  We  inter- 
dict him  from  entrance  into  the  Church  and  from  the  grace 
of  St.  Peter  until  he  shall  have  resigned  the  dignity  thus 
acquired  by  ambition  and  disobedience,  which  are  equal  to 
idolatry.  Also,  if  any  emperor,  duke,  marquis,  count,  or 
other  secular  authority  shall  presume  to  give  investiture  of 
a  bishopric  or  other  dignity  of  the  Church,  let  him  under- 
stand that  the  same  penalty  shall  be  exacted  from  him." 

The  position  of  affairs  between  Pope  and  Emperor  was 
thus  fundamentally  altered.  The  father  of  Henry,  a  much 
more  faithful  son  of  the  Church,  had  almost  without  oppo- 


240  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

sition  made  Popes  by  his  own  will  where  now  his  son  was 
interdicted  from  appointing  a  single  bishop.  The  evil  was 
great  enough  perhaps  for  this  great  remedy,  and  Gregory, 
who  had  gone  so  far,  was  restrained  now  by  no  prudent 
precautions  from  proceeding  to  the  utmost  length  possible. 
The  day  of  prudence  was  over ;  he  had  entered  upon  a  path 
in  which  there  was  no  drawing  back.  That  it  was  not  done 
lightly  or  without  profound  and  painful  thought,  and  a 
deep  sense  of  danger  and  impending  trouble,  is  apparent 
from  the  following  letter  in  which  the  Pope  unbosoms  him- 
self to  the  head  of  his  former  convent,  the  great  Hugo  of 
Cluny,  his  own  warm  friend,  and  at  the  same  time  Henry's 
tutor  and  constant  defender. 

"I  am  overwhelmed  (he  writes)  with  great  sorrow  and  trouble. 
Wherever  I  look,  south,  north,  or  west,  I  see  not  a  single  bishop  whose 
promotion  and  conduct  are  legal,  and  who  governs  the  Christian  people 
for  the  love  of  Christ,  and  not  by  temporal  ambition.  As  for  secular 
princes,  there  is  not  one  who  prefers  the  glory  of  God  to  his  own,  or 
justice  to  interest.  Those  among  whom  I  live  —  the  Romans,  the  Lom- 
bards, the  Normans  —  are,  as  I  tell  them  to  their  faces,  worse  than  Jews 
and  Pagans.  And  when  I  return  within  myself,  I  am  so  overwhelmed 
by  the  weight  of  life  that  I  feel  no  longer  hope  in  anything  but  the  mercy 
of  Christ." 

Notwithstanding  the  supreme  importance  of  this  ques- 
tion, and  Gregory's  deep  sense  of  the  tremendous  character 
of  the  struggle  on  which  he  had  thus  engaged,  matters 
of  public  morality  in  other  ways  were  not  sacrificed  to 
these  great  proceedings  for  the  honour  of  the  Church.  He 
not  only  himself  assumed,  but  pressed  upon  all  spiritual 
authorities  under  him,  the  duty  and  need  of  prompt  inter- 
ference in  the  cause  of  justice  and  public  honesty.  The 
letters  which  follow  were  called  forth  by  a  remarkable 
breach  of  these  laws  of  honesty  and  the  protection  due 
to  strangers  and  travellers  which  are  fundamental  rules 
of  society.  This  was  the  spoliation  of  certain  merchants 
robbed  in  their  passage  through  France,  and  from  whom 
the  Pope  accuses  the  young  King  Philip  I.  to  have  taken, 


in.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VH.  241 

"like  a  brigand,  an  immense  sum  of  money."  Gregory 
addresses  himself  to  the  bishops  of  France  in  warning  and 
entreaty  as  follows : 

"  As  it  is  not  possible  that  such  crimes  should  escape  the  sentence 
of  the  Supreme  Judge,  we  pray  you  and  we  warn  you  with  true  charity 
to  be  careful  and  not  to  draw  upon  yourself  the  prophet's  curse  :  '  Woe 
to  him  who  turns  back  his  sword  from  blood '  —  that  is  to  say,  as  you 
well  understand,  who  does  not  use  the  sword  of  the  Word  for  the  cor- 
rection of  worldly  men  ;  for  you  are  in  fault,  my  brethren,  you  who, 
instead  of  opposing  these  vile  proceedings  with  all  the  rigour  of  the 
priesthood,  encourage  wickedness  by  your  silence.  It  is  useless  to 
speak  of  fear.  United  and  armed  to  defend  the  just,  your  force  will 
be  such  that  you  will  be  able  to  quench  evil  passions  in  penitence. 
And  even  if  there  were  danger,  that  is  no  reason  for  giving  up  the 
freedom  of  your  priesthood.  We  pray  you,  then,  and  we  warn  you 
by  the  authority  of  the  Apostles,  to  unite  in  the  interest  of  your  coun- 
try, of  your  glory  and  salvation,  in  a  common  and  unanimous  counsel. 
Go  to  the  king,  tell  him  of  his  shame,  of  his  danger  and  that  of  his 
kingdom.  Show  him  to  his  face  how  criminal  are  his  acts  and  motives, 
endeavour  to  move  him  by  every  inducement  that  he  may  undo  the 
harm  which  he  has  done. 

"  But  if  he  will  not  listen  to  you,  and  if,  scorning  the  wrath  of  God, 
and  indifferent  to  his  own  royal  dignity,  to  his  own  salvation  and  that 
of  his  people,  he  is  obstinate  in  the  hardness  of  his  heart,  let  him  hear 
as  from  our  mouth  that  he  cannot  escape  much  longer  the  sword  of 
apostolic  punishment." 

These  are  not  such  words  as  Peter  was  ever  commissioned 
in  Holy  Writ  to  give  forth ;  but  granting  all  the  pretensions 
of  Peter's  successors,  as  so  many  good  Christians  do,  it  is 
no  ignoble  voice  which  thus  raises  itself  in  warning,  which 
thus  denounces  the  vengeance  of  the  Church  against  the 
evil-doer,  be  he  bishop,  clown,  or  king.  Gregory  had  neither 
armies  nor  great  wealth  to  support  his  interference  with  the 
course  of  the  world  —  he  had  only  right  and  justice,  and  a 
profound  faith  in  his  mission.  He  risked  everything  —  his 
life  (so  small  a  matter ! ),  his  position,  even  the  safety  of 
the  Church  itself,  which  these  potentates  could  have  crushed 
under  their  mailed  shoes ;  but  that  there  should  be  one  voice 
which  would  not  lie,  one  champion  who  would  not  be  turned 
aside,  one  witness  for  good,  always  and  everywhere,  against 
evil,  was  surely  as  noble  a  pretension  as  ever  was  lifted 


242  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

under  heaven.  It  was  to  extend  the  power  of  Rome,  all 
the  historians  say ;  which  no  doubt  he  wished  to  do.  But 
whether  to  extend  the  power  of  Rome  was  his  first  object, 
or  to  pursue  guilt  and  cruelty  and  falsehood  out  of  the  very 
boundaries  of  the  world  if  one  man  could  drive  them  forth, 
God  only  can  judge.  When  there  are  two  evident  motives, 
however,  it  is  not  always  wise  to  believe  that  the  worst  is 
the  one  to  choose. 

In  most  curious  contrast  to  these  great  and  daring  utter- 
ances is  the  incident,  quite  temporary  and  of  no  real  impor- 
tance, in  his  life,  which  occurred  to  Pope  Gregory  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  was  thus  threatening  a  world  lying  in 
wickedness  with  the  thunderbolts  of  Rome.  The  city  which 
had  gone  through  so  many  convulsions,  and  was  now  the 
centre  of  the  pilgrimages  of  the  world,  was  still  in  its  form 
and  construction  the  ancient  Rome,  and  more  or  less  a  city 
of  ruins.  The  vast  open  spaces,  forums,  circuses,  great 
squares,  and  amphitheatres,  which  made  old  Rome  so  spa- 
cious and  magnificent,  still  existed  as  they  still  to  a  certain 
extent  exist.  But  no  great  builder  had  as  yet  arisen  among 
the  Popes,  no  one  wealthy  enough  or  with  leisure  enough 
to  order  the  city  upon  new  lines,  to  give  it  a  modern  shape, 
or  reduce  it  to  the  dimensions  necessary  for  its  limited  popu- 
lation. It  was  still  a  great  quarry  for  the  world,  full  of 
treasures  that  could  be  carried  away,  a  reservoir  and  store- 
house of  relics  to  which  every  man  might  help  himself. 
Professor  Lanciani,  the  accomplished  and  learned  savant  to 
whom  we  owe  so  much  information  concerning  the  ancient 
city,  has  shown  us  how  much  mediaeval  covetousness  in  this 
way  had  to  do  with  the  actual  disappearance  of  ancient 
buildings,  stone  by  stone.  But  this  was  not  the  only  offence 
committed  against  the  monuments  of  the  past.  The  great 
edifices  of  the  classic  age  were  often  turned,  not  without 
advantage  in  the  sense  of  the  picturesque,  into  strongholds 
of  the  nobles,  sometimes  almost  as  much  isolated  amid  the 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  243 

great  gaps  of  ruins  as  in  the  Campagna  outside.  The  only 
buildings  belonging  to  the  time  were  monasteries,  generally 
surrounded  by  strong  walls,  capable  of  affording  protection 
to  a  powerful  community,  and  in  which  the  humble  and  poor 
could  find  refuge  in  time  of  trouble.  These  establishments, 
and  the  mediaeval  fortresses  and  towers  built  into  the  midst 
of  the  ruins,  occupied  with  many  wild  spaces  between,  where 
the  luxuriant  herbage  buried  fallen  pillars  and  broken  foun- 
dations, the  wastes  of  desolation  which  filled  up  half  the  area 
of  the  town.  The  population  seems  to  have  clustered  about 
the  eastern  end  of  the  city ;  all  the  life  of  which  one  reads, 
except  an  occasional  tumult  around  St.  Peter's  and  north  of 
St.  Angelo,  seems  to  have  passed  on  the  slopes  or  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Aventine  and  Coelian  hills,  from  thence  to 
the  Latin  gate,  and  the  Pope's  palace  there,  the  centre  of 
government  and  state  —  and  on  the  hill  of  the  Capitol,  where 
still  the  people  gathered  when  there  was  a  motive  for  a  pop- 
ular assembly.  The  ordinary  populace  must  have  swarmed 
in  whatsoever  half-ruined  barracks  of  old  palaces,  or  squa- 
lid huts  of  new  erection  hanging  on  to  their  skirts,  might  be 
attainable  in  these  quarters,  clustering  together  for  warmth 
and  safety,  while  the  rest  of  the  city  lay  waste,  sprinkled 
with  ruins  and  desolate  paths,  with  great  houses  here  and 
there  in  which  the  strangely  mixed  race  bearing  the  names, 
often  self -appropriated,  of  ancient  Roman  patrician  families, 
lived  and  robbed  and  made  petty  war,  and  besieged  each 
other  within  their  strong  walls. 

One  of  these  fortified  houses  or  towers,  built  at  or  on  the 
bridge  of  St.  Angelo  —  in  which  the  noble  owner  sat  like 
a  spider,  drawing  in  flies  to  his  web,  taking  toll  of  every 
stranger  who  entered  Eome  by  that  way — belonged  to  a 
certain  Cencio l  or  Cencius  of  the  family  of  Tusculum,  the 

1  This  personage  is  always  called  Cencio  in  the  Italian  records. 
He  is  supposed  by  some  to  have  been  of  the  family  of  the  Crescenzj, 
of  which  name,  as  well  as  of  Vincenzo,  this  is  the  diminutive. 


2M  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

son  of  the  Prsefect  of  Borne.  The  Prefect,  unlike  his 
family,  was  one  of  the  most  devoted  adherents  of  the 
Popes ;  he  is,  indeed,  in  the  curious  glimpse  afforded  to  us 
by  history,  one  of  the  most  singular  figures  that  occur  in 
that  crowded  foreground.  A  mediaeval  noble  and  high  offi- 
cial, he  was  at  the  same  time  a  lay-preacher,  delighted  to 
exercise  his  gift  when  the  more  legitimate  sermon  failed 
from  any  cause,  and  only  too  proud,  it  would  appear,  of 
hearing  his  own  voice  in  the  pulpit.  That  his  son  should 
be  of  a  very  different  disposition  was  perhaps  not  to  be 
wondered  at.  Cencius  was  as  turbulent  as  his  father  was 
pious ;  but  he  must  have  been  a  soldier  of  some  note,  as  he 
held  the  post  of  Captain  of  St.  Angelo,  and  in  that  capacity 
had  maintained  during  a  long  siege  the  anti-pope  Cadalous, 
or  Honorius  II.,  from  whom,  brigand  as  he  was,  he  exacted 
a  heavy  ransom  before  permitting  the  unfortunate  and  too 
ambitious  prelate  to  steal  away  like  a  thief  in  the  night 
when  his  chance  was  evidently  over.  Cencius  would  seem 
to  have  lost  his  post  in  St.  Angelo,  but  he  maintained  his 
robber's  tower  on  the  other  end  of  the  bridge,  and  was  one 
of  the  most  dangerous  and  turbulent  of  these  internal  ene- 
mies of  Rome.  During  an  interval  of  banishment,  following 
a  more  than  usually  cruel  murder,  he  had  visited  Germany, 
and  had  met  at  young  Henry's  court  with  many  people  to 
whom  Pope  Gregory  was  obnoxious,  from  Gottfried  the 
Hunchback,  the  husband  of  the  Countess  Matilda,  to  the 
young  king  himself.  Whether  what  followed  was  the  result 
of  any  conspiracy,  however,  or  if  it  was  an  outburst  of  mad 
vengeance  on  the  part  of  Cencius  himself,  or  the  mere  cal- 
culating impulse  of  a  freebooter  to  secure  a  good  ransom,  is 
not  known.  A  conspiracy,  with  Godfrey  at  the  head  of  it, 
not  without  support  from  Henry,  and  the  knowledge  at 
least  of  the  Archbishop  of  Ravenna  and  Robert  Guiscard, 
all  deeply  irritated  by  the  Pope's  recent  proceedings,  was 
of  course  the  favourite  idea  at  the  time.  But  no  clear 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  245 

explanation  of  motives  has  ever  been  attained,  and  only 
the  facts  are  known. 

On  Christmas-eve  it  was  the  habit  of  the  Popes  to  cele- 
brate a  midnight  mass  in  the  great  basilica  of  Sta.  Maria 
Maggiore  in  what  was  then  a  lonely  and  dangerous  neigh- 
bourhood, though  not  very  far  from  the  Lateran  Church  and 
palace.  It  was  usually  the  occasion  of  a  great  concourse 
from  all  parts  of  the  city,  attracted  by  the  always  popular 
midnight  celebration.  But  on  Christmas-eve  of  the  year 
1076  (Muratori  says  1075)  a  great  storm  burst  over  the 
city  as  the  hour  approached  for  the  ceremony.  Torrents 
of  rain,  almost  tropical  in  violence,  as  rain  so  often  is  in 
Eome,  poured  down  from  the  blackness  of  the  skies,  extin- 
guishing even  the  torches  by  which  the  Pope  and  his  dimin- 
ished procession  made  their  way  to  the  great  church,  blazing 
out  cheerfully  with  all  its  lighted  windows  into  the  night. 
Besides  the  priests  only  a  very  small  number  of  the  people 
followed,  and  there  was  no  such  murmur  and  rustle  of  sym- 
pathy and  warmth  of  heart  as  such  an  assembly  generally 
calls  forth.  But  the  great  altar  was  decorated  for  Christ- 
mas, and  the  Pope  attired  in  his  robes,  and  everything 
shining  with  light  and  brightness  within,  though  the  storm 
raged  without.  The  mass  was  almost  over,  Gregory  and 
the  priests  had  communicated,  the  faithful  company  assem- 
bled were  receiving  their  humbler  share  of  the  sacred  feast, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  the  office  would  have  been  completed, 
when  suddenly  the  church  was  filled  with  noise  and  clamour 
and  armed  men.  There  was  no  one  to  defend  the  priests 
at  the  altar,  even  had  it  been  possible  in  the  suddenness  of 
the  assault  to  do  so.  Cencius's  band  was  composed  of  ruff- 
ians from  every  region,  united  only  in  their  lawlessness 
and  crime ;  they  seized  the  Pope  at  the  altar,  one  of  them 
wounding  him  slightly  in  the  forehead.  It  is  said  that  he 
neither  asked  for  mercy  nor  uttered  a  complaint,  nor  even 
an  expostulation,  but  permitted  himself  without  a  word  to 


246  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

be  dragged  out  of  the  church,  stripped  of  his  robes,  placed 
on  a  horse  behind  one  of  the  troopers,  and  carried  off  into 
the  night  not  knowing  where. 

All  this  happened  before  the  terrified  priests  and  people 
—  many  of  the  latter  probably  poor  women  from  the  hovels 
round  about  —  recovered  their  surprise.  The  wild  band, 
with  the  Pope  in  the  midst,  galloped  out  into  the  blackness 
and  the  rain,  passing  under  garden  walls  and  the  towers  of 
silent  monasteries,  where  the  monks,  too  much  accustomed 
to  such  sounds  to  take  much  notice,  would  hear  the  rush  of 
the  horses  and  the  rude  voices  in  the  night  with  thankful- 
ness that  no  thundering  at  the  convent  gates  called  upon 
them  to  give  the  free  lances  shelter.  It  appears  that  it  was 
not  to  Cencius's  stronghold  on  the  bridge  but  to  the  house 
of  one  of  his  retainers  that  this  great  prize  was  conveyed. 
Here  Gregory,  in  the  cassock  which  he  had  worn  under  his 
gorgeous  papal  dress,  wet  and  bleeding  from  the  wound  in 
his  forehead,  was  flung  without  ceremony  into  an  empty 
room.  The  story  is  that  some  devout  man  in  the  crowd 
and  a  Eoman  lady,  by  some  chance  witnessing  the  arrival 
of  the  band,  stole  in  with  them,  and  found  their  way  to  the 
place  in  which  the  Pope  lay,  covering  him  with  their  own 
furs  and  mantles  and  attending  to  his  wound.  And  thus 
passed  the  Christmas  morning  in  the  misery  of  that  cruel  cold 
which,  though  rare,  is  nowhere  more  bitter  than  in  Rome. 

In  the  meantime  the  terrified  congregation  in  Sta.  Maria 
Maggiore  had  recovered  its  senses,  and  messengers  hurried 
out  in  all  directions  to  trace  the  way  by  which  the  free- 
booters had  gone,  and  to  spread  the  news  of  the  Pope's 
abduction.  The  storm  had  by  this  time  passed  over,  and 
the  people  were  easily  roused  on  the  eve  of  the  great  festi- 
val. Torches  began  to  gleam  by  all  the  darkling  ways,  and 
the  population  poured  forth  in  the  excitement  of  a  great 
event.  It  would  seem  that  in  all  the  tumultuous  and 
factious  city  there  was  but  one  thought  of  horror  at  the 


in.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  249 

sacrilege,  and  determination  to  save  the  Pope  if  it  were 
still  possible.  Gregory  was  not,  like  his  great  predecessor 
the  first  of  that  name,  the  idol  of  his  people.  He  had  not  the 
wealth  with  which  many  great  ecclesiastics  had  secured  the 
homage  of  the  often  famished  crowd;  and  a  stern  man, 
with  no  special  geniality  of  nature,  and  views  that  went  so 
far  beyond  the  local  interests  of  Rome,  he  does  not  seem 
the  kind  of  ruler  to  have  secured  popular  favour.  Yet  the 
city  had  never  been  more  unanimous,  more  determined  in 
its  resolution.  The  tocsin  was  sounded  in  all  the  quarters 
of  Rome  during  that  night  of  excitement';  every  soldier  was 
called  forth,  guards  were  set  at  all  the  gates,  lest  the  Pope 
should  be  conveyed  out  of  the  city ;  and  the  agitated  crowd 
flocked  to  the  Capitol,  the  only  one  of  the  seven  hills  of 
Rome  where  some  kind  of  repair  and  restoration  had  been 
attempted,  to  consult,  rich  and  poor  together,  people  and 
nobles,  what  was  to  be  done.  To  this  spot  came  the  scouts 
sent  out  in  search  of  information,  to  report  their  discoveries. 
They  had  found  that  the  Pope  was  still  in  Rome,  and  where 
he  was  —  a  prisoner,  but  as  yet  unharmed. 

With  one  impulse  the  people  of  Rome,  forming  them- 
selves into  an  undignified  but  enthusiastic  army,  rushed 
down  from  their  place  of  meeting  towards  the  robber's 
castle.  We  hear  of  engines  of  .war,  and  all  the  cumbrous 
adjuncts  of  a  siege  and  means  of  breaching  the  walls,  as 
if  those  articles  had  been  all  ready  in  preparation  for  any 
emergency.  The  palace,  though  strong,  could  not  stand  the 
assault  of  the  whole  population,  and  soon  it  was  necessary 
to  bring  the  Pope  from  his  prison  and  show  him  at  a  win- 
dow to  pacify  the  assailants.  Cencius  did  all  that  a  ruffian 
in  such  circumstances  would  naturally  do.  He  first  tried 
to  extract  money  and  lands  from  the  Pope's  terrors,  and 
then  flung  himself  on  his  knees  before  Gregory,  imploring 
forgiveness  and  protection.  The  first  attempt  was  useless, 
for  Gregory  was  not  afraid ;  the  second  was  more  successful, 


250  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME          [CHAP. 

for  remorseless  to  the  criminals  whose  evil  acts  or  example 
injured  the  Church,  the  Pope  was  merciful  enough  to  ordi- 
nary sinners,  and  had  never  condemned  any  man  to  death. 
"  What  ^ou  have  done  to  me  I  pardon  you  as  a  father ;  but 
what  you  have  done  against  God  and  the  Church  must  be 
atoned  for,"  said  Gregory,  still  at  the  mercy  of  any  rude 
companion  in  that  band  of  ruffians  :  and  he  commanded  his 
captor  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  to  cleanse  him- 
self from  this  sin.  The  Pope  was  conveyed  out  of  his  prison 
by  the  excited  and  enthusiastic  crowd,  shouting  and  weep- 
ing, half  for  joy,  and  half  at  sight  of  the  still  bleeding  scar 
on  his  forehead.  But  weak  and  exhausted  as  he  was,  with- 
out food,  after  a  night  and  almost  a  day  of  such  excitement, 
in  which  he  had  not  known  from  one  hour  to  another  what 
might  happen,  helpless  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  Gregory 
had  but  one  thought  —  to  conclude  his  mass  which  he  had 
not  finished  when  he  was  interrupted  at  the  altar.  He  went 
back  in  his  cassock,  covered  by  the  stranger's  furred  cloak, 
along  the  same  wild  way  over  which  he  had  been  hurried  in 
the  darkness ;  and  followed  by  the  entire  population,  which 
swarmed  into  every  corner  and  blocked  every  entrance,  re- 
turned to  the  great  basilica,  where  he  once  more  ascended 
the  altar  steps,  completed  the  mass,  offered  his  thanksgiv- 
ings to  God,  and  blessed  and  thanked  his  deliverers,  before 
he  sought  in  the  quick  falling  twilight  of  the  winter  day 
the  rest  of  his  own  house. 

It  is  common  to  increase  the  effect  of  this  most  pictu- 
resque scene  by  describing  Gregory  as  an  aged  man,  old  and 
worn  out,  in  the  midst  of  his  fierce  foes  ;  but  he  was  barely 
sixty  and  still  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength,  though  spare 
and  shrunken  by  many  fasts  and  still  more  anxieties.  That 
he  had  lost  nothing  of  his  vigour  is  evident,  and  in  fact  the 
incident,  though  never  forgotten  as  a  dramatic  and  telling 
episode  by  the  historians,  was  a  mere  incident  of  no  im- 
portance whatever  in  his  life. 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  V1L  251 

In  the  meantime  the  Emperor  Henry,  who  had  been  dis- 
posed to  humility  and  penitence  by  the  efforts  of  his  mother, 
and  by  the  distresses  of  his  own  position  during  a  doubt- 
ful and  dangerous  intestine  war,  in  which  all  at  the  time 
seemed  to  be  going  against  him,  had  subdued  the  Saxons 
and  recovered  the  upper  hand :  and,  thus  victorious  in  his 
own  country,  was  no  longer  disposed  to  bow  his  neck  under 
any  spiritual  yoke.  He  had  paid  no  attention  to  Gregory's 
commands  in  respect  to  simony  nor  to  the  ordinance  against 
lay  investiture  which  had  proceeded  from  the  Council  of 
1075 ;  but  had,  on  the  contrary,  filled  up  several  bishoprics 
in  the  old  way,  continued  to  receive  the  excommunicated 
nobles,  and  treated  Gregory's  decrees  as  if  they  had  never 
been.  His  indignation  at  the  Pope's  interference  —  that 
indignation  which  every  secular  prince  has  always  shown 
when  interfered  with  by  the  Holy  See,  and  which  so  easily 
translates  the  august  titles  of  the  successor  of  St.  Feter,  the 
Vicar  of  Christ,  into  a  fierce  denunciation  of  the  "Italian 
priest"  whom  mediaeval  princes  feared  and  hated  —  was 
only  intensified  by  his  supreme  pretensions  as  Emperor,  and 
grew  in  virulence  as  Gregory's  undaunted  front  and  con- 
tinued exercise,  so  far  as  anathemas  would  do  it,  of  the 
weapons  of  church  discipline,  stood  steadily  before  him.  It 
is  very  possible  that  the  complete  discomfiture  of  Cencius's 
attempt  upon  the  Pope's  liberty  or  life,  to  which  Henry  is 
believed  to  have  been  accessory,  and  the  disgrace  and  ridi- 
cule of  that  failure,  irritated  and  exasperated  the  young 
monarch,  and  that  he  felt  henceforward  that  no  terms  could 
be  kept  with  the  man  whom  he  had  failed  to  destroy. 

Gregory,  on  the  other  hand,  finding  all  his  efforts  unsuc- 
cessful to  gain  the  submission  of  Henry,  had  again  taken 
the  strong  step  of  summoning  him  to  appear  before  the 
yearly  council  held  in  Eome  at  the  beginning  of  Lent,  there 
to  answer  for  his  indifference  to  its  previous  decisions.  The 
following  letter  sent  to  Henry  a  short  time  after  the  attempt 


252  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  Cencius,  but  in  which,  not  a  word  of  that  attempt  is  said, 
is  a  remarkable  example  of  Gregory's  dignified  and  unyield- 
ing attitude : 

"  Gregory,  servant  of  the  servants  of  God. 

"To  Henry,  king,  salutation  and  the  blessing  of  the  apostles,  if  he 
obeys  the  apostolic  see,  as  becomes  a  Christian  king. 

"  Considering  with  anxiety,  within  ourselves,  to  what  tribunal  we 
have  to  give  an  account  of  the  dispensation  of  the  ministry  which  has 
been  extended  to  us  by  the  Prince  of  the  apostles,  we  send  you  with 
doubt  our  apostolic  blessing,  since  we  are  assured  that  you  live  in  close 
union  with  men  excommunicated  by  the  judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See 
and  the  censure  of  the  synod.  If  this  is  true,  you  will  yourself  per- 
ceive that  you  cannot  receive  the  grace  of  blessing  either  divine  or 
apostolic,  until  you  have  dismissed  from  your  society  these  excom- 
municated persons,  or  in  forcing  them  to  express  their  repentance 
have  yourself  obtained  absolution  by  penitence  and  expiation.  We 
counsel  your  highness,  if  you  are  guilty  in  this  respect,  to  have  recourse, 
without  delay,  to  the  advice  of  some  pious  bishop,  who,  under  our 
authority,  will  direct  you  what  to  do,  and  absolve  you,  informing  us 
with  your  consent  of  your  penitence." 

The  Pope  goes  on  to  point  out,  recalling  to  Henry's  mind 
the  promises  he  had  made,  and  the  assurances  given  —  how 
different  his  conduct  has  been  from  his  professions. 

"  In  respect  to  the  church  of  Milan,  how  you  have  kept  the  engage- 
ments made  with  your  mother,  and  with  the  bishops  our  colleagues, 
and  with  what  intention  you  made  these  promises,  the  event  itself 
shows.  And  now  to  add  wound  to  wound,  you  have  disposed  of  the 
churches  of  Spoleto  and  of  Fermo.  Is  it  possible  that  a  man  dares  to 
transfer  or  give  a  church  to  persons  unknown  to  us,  while  the  imposi- 
tion of  hands  is  not  permitted,  except  on  those  who  are  well  known 
and  approved  ?  Your  own  dignity  demands,  since  you  call  yourself 
the  son  of  the  Church,  that  you  should  honour  him  who  is  at  her  head, 
that  is  the  blessed  Peter,  the  prince  of  the  apostles,  to  whom,  if  you 
are  of  the  flock  of  the  Lord,  you  have  been  formally  confided  by  the 
voice  and  authority  of  the  Lord  —  him  to  whom  Christ  said  '  Feed  my 
sheep.'  So  long  as  we,  sinful  and  unworthy  as  we  are,  hold  his  place 
in  his  seat  and  apostolical  government,  it  is  he  who  receives  all  that 
you  address  to  us  either  by  writing  or  speech  ;  and  while  we  read  your 
letters  or  listen  to  your  words,  it  is  he  who  beholds  with  a  penetrating 
eye  what  manner  of  heart  it  is  from  which  they  come." 

In  this  dignified  and  serious  remonstrance  there  is  not  a 
word  of  the  personal  insult  and  injury  which  the  Pope  him- 
self had  suffered.  He  passes  over  Cencius  and  his  foiled 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VH.  253 

villainy  as  if  it  had  never  been ;  but  while  Gregory  could 
forget,  Henry  could  not :  and  historians  have  traced  to  the 
failure  of  this  desperate  attempt  to  subdue  or  extinguish 
the  too  daring,  too  steadfast  Pontiff,  the  new  spirit  —  the 
impulse  of  equally  desperate  rage  and  vengeance  —  which 
took  possession  of  the  monarch,  finding,  after  all  his  victo- 
ries, that  here  was  one  opponent  whom  he  could  not  over- 
come, whose  voice  could  reach  over  all  Christendom,  and 
who  bore  penalties  in  his  unarmed  hand  at  which  no 
crowned  head  could  afford  to  smile.  To  crush  the  auda- 
cious priest  to  the  earth,  if  not  by  the  base  ministry  of 
Roman  bravos,  then  by  the  scarcely  more  clean  hands  of 
German  barons  and  excommunicated  bishops,  was  the  im- 
pulse which  now  filled  Henry's  mind.  He  invoked  a  coun- 
cil in  Worms,  a  month  after  the  failure  in  Rome,  which 
was  attended  by  a  large  number,  not  only  of  the  German 
nobility,  but  of  the  great  ecclesiastics  who  nowhere  had 
greater  power,  wealth,  and  influence  than  in  Teutonic  coun- 
tries. Half  of  them  had  been  condemned  by  Gregory  for 
simony  or  other  vices,  many  of  them  were  aware  that  they 
were  liable  to  similar  penalties.  The  reformer  Pope,  who 
after  the  many  tentatives  and  half-measures  of  his  prede- 
cessors, was  now  supreme,  and  would  shrink  from  nothing 
in  his  great  mission  of  purifying  the  Church,  was  a  constant 
danger  and  fear  to  these  great  mediaeval  nobles  varnished 
over  with  the  names  of  churchmen.  One  stroke  had  failed : 
but  another  was  quite  possible  which  great  Henry  the  king, 
triumphant  over  all  his  enemies,  might  surely  with  their 
help  and  sanction  bring  to  pass. 

The  peers  spiritual  and  temporal,  the  princes  who  scorned 
the  interference  of  a  priest,  and  the  priests  who  feared  the 
loss  of  all  their  honours  and  the  disgrace  and  humiliation 
with  which  the  Pope  threatened  them,  came  together  in 
crowds  to  pull  down  their  enemy  from  his  throne.  Nothing 
so  bold  had  ever  been  attempted  since  Christendom  had 


254:  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

grown  into  the  comity  of  nations  it  now  was.  Cencius  had 
pulled  the  Pope  from  the  altar  steps  in  the  night  and  dark : 
Henry  and  his  court  assembled  in  broad  day,  with  every 
circumstance  of  pomp  and  publicity,  to  drag  him  from  his 
spiritual  throne.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the 
palm  of  fierceness  and  brutality  should  be  given  to  the 
brigand  of  the  Tusculan  hills,  or  to  the  great  king,  princes, 
archbishops,  and  bishops  of  the  Teutonic  empire.  Cencius 
swore  in  his  beard,  unheard  of  after  generations ;  the  others, 
less  fortunate,  have  left  on  record  what  were  the  manner 
of  words  they  said.  This  is  the  solemn  act  signed  by  all 
the  members  of  the  assembly,  by  which  the  Pope  was  to 
learn  his  doom.  It  is  a  long  and  furious  scold  from  begin- 
ning to  end. 

"  Hildebrand,  taking  the  name  of  Gregory,  is  the  first  who,  without 
our  knowledge,  against  the  will  of  the  emperor  chosen  by  God,  con- 
trary to  the  habit  of  our  ancestors,  contrary  to  the  laws,  has,  by  his 
ambition  alone,  invaded  the  papacy.  He  does  whatever  pleases  him, 
right  or  wrong,  good  or  evil.  An  apostate  monk,  he  degrades  theol- 
ogy by  new  doctrines  and  false  interpretations,  alters  the  holy  books 
to  suit  his  personal  interests,  mixes  the  sacred  and  profane,  opens  his 
ears  to  demons  and  to  calumny,  and  makes  himself  at  once  judge,  wit- 
ness, accuser,  and  defender.  He  separates  husbands  from  wives,  pre- 
fers immodest  women  to  chaste  wives,  and  adulterous  and  debauched 
and  incestuous  connections  to  legitimate  unions  ;  he  raises  the  people 
against  their  bishops  and  priests.  He  recognises  those  only  as  legally 
ordained  who  have  begged  the  priesthood  from  his  hands,  or  who  have 
bought  it  from  the  instruments  of  his  extortions  ;  he  deceives  the  vul- 
gar by  a  feigned  religion,  fabricated  in  a  womanish  senate  :  it  is  there 
that  he  discusses  the  sacred  mysteries  of  religion,  ruins  the  papacy, 
and  attacks  at  once  the  holy  see  and  the  empire.  He  is  guilty  of  lese- 
majeste  both  divine  and  human,  desiring  to  deprive  of  life  and  rank  our 
consecrated  emperor  and  gracious  sovereign. 

"  For  these  reasons,  the  emperor,  the  bishops,  the  senate,  and  the 
Christian  people  declare  him  deposed,  and  will  no  longer  leave  the 
sheep  of  Christ  to  the  keeping  of  this  devouring  wolf." 

Among  the  papers  sent  to  Rome  this  insolent  act  is 
repeated  at  greater  length,  accompanied  by  various  ad- 
dresses to  the  bishops  and  people,  and  two  letters  to  the 
Pope  himself,  from  one  of  which,  the  least  insolent,  we 
quote  a  few  sentences. 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  255 

"  Henry,  king  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  Hildebrand. 

"  While  I  expected  from  you  the  treatment  of  a  father,  and  deferred 
to  you  in  everything,  to  the  great  indignation  of  my  faithful  subjects, 
I  have  experienced  on  your  part  in  return  the  treatment  which  I  might 
have  looked  for  from  the  most  pernicious  enemy  of  my  life  and  kingdom. 

"First  having  robbed  me  by  an  insolent  procedure  of  the  hereditary 
dignity  which  was  my  right  in  Rome,  you  have  gone  further  —  you 
have  attempted  by  detestable  artifices  to  alienate  from  me  the  kingdom 
of  Italy.  Not  content  with  this,  you  have  put  forth  your  hand  on 
venerable  bishops  who  are  united  to  me  as  the  most  precious  members 
of  my  body,  and  have  worn  them  out  with  affronts  and  injustice 
against  all  laws  human  and  divine.  Judging  that  this  unheard-of  in- 
solence ought  to  be  met  by  acts,  not  by  words,  I  have  called  together 
a  general  assembly  of  all  the  greatest  in  my  kingdom,  at  their  own 
request,  and  when  there  had  been  publicly  produced  before  them 
things  hidden  up  to  that  moment,  from  fear  or  respect,  their  declara- 
tions have  made  manifest  the  impossibility  of  retaining  you  in  the  Holy 
See.  Therefore  adhering  to  their  sentence,  which  seems  to  me  just 
and  praiseworthy  before  God  and  men,  I  forbid  to  you  the  jurisdiction 
of  Pope  which  you  have  exercised,  and  I  command  you  to  come  down 
from  the  Apostolic  See  of  Rome,  the  superiority  of  which  belongs  to 
me  by  the  gift  of  God,  and  the  assent  and  oath  of  the  Romans." 

The  other  letter  ends  with  the  following  adjuration,  which 
the  king  prefaces  by  quoting  the  words  of  St.  Paul :  "  If  an 
angel  from  heaven  preach  any  other  doctrine  to  you  than 
that  we  have  preached  unto  you,  let  him  be  accursed  "  : 

"You  who  are  struck  by  this  curse  and  condemned  by  the  judgment 
of  the  bishops  and  by  our  own,  come  down,  leave  the  apostolic  chair; 
let  another  assume  the  throne  of  St.  Peter,  not  to  cover  violence  with 
the  mantle  of  religion,  but  to  teach  the  doctrine  of  the  blessed  apostle. 
I,  Henry,  king  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  all  my  bishops,  we  command 
you,  come  down,  come  down  ! " 

These  letters  were  sent  to  Eome  by  Count  Eberhard,  the 
same  who  had  come  to  inquire  into  the  election  of  Gregory 
two  years  before,  and  had  confirmed  and  consented  to  it  in 
the  name  of  his  master.  He  was  himself  one  of  the  excom- 
municated barons  whom  Gregory  had  struck  for  simoniacal 
grants  of  benefices ;  but  he  had  not  the  courage  to  carry  fire 
and  flame  into  the  very  household  of  the  Pope.  He  did, 
however,  all  the  harm  he  could,  publishing  the  contents  of 
the  letters  he  carried  in  the  great  Italian  cities,  where  every 
guilty  priest  rejoiced  to  think  that  he  had  thus  escaped  the 


256  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

hands  of  the  terrible  Gregory.  But  when  he  came  within 
reach  of  Rome  the  great  German  baron  lost  heart.  He  found 
a  substitute  in  a  priest  of  Parma,  a  hot-headed  partisan,  one 
of  those'  instruments  of  malice  who  are  insensible  to  the 
peril  of  burning  fuse  or  sudden  explosion.  The  conspira- 
tors calculated  with  a  sense  of  the  dramatic  which  could 
scarcely  have  been  expected  from  their  nationality,  and 
which  looks  more  like  the  inspiration  of  the  Italian  himself 
—  that  he  should  arrive  in  Rome  on  the  eve  of  the  yearly 
council  held  in  the  Lateran  at  the  beginning  of  Lent.  This 
yearly  synod  was  a  more  than  usually  important  one ;  for 
already  the  news  of  the  decision  at  Worms  was  known  in 
Italy,  and  a  great  number  of  the  clergy,  both  small  and 
great,  had  crowded  to  Rome.  A  hundred  and  ten  prelates 
are  reckoned  as  present,  besides  many  other  dignitaries. 
Among  them  sat,  as  usual  on  such  occasions,  Beatrice  and 
Matilda  of  Tuscany,  the  only  secular  protectors  of  Gregory, 
the  greatest  and  nearest  of  Italian  sovereigns.  It  was  their 
presence  that  was  aimed  at  in  the  strangely  abusive  edict  of 
Worms  as  making  the  Council  a  womanish  senate :  and  it 
was  also  Matilda's  'case  which  was  referred  to  in  the  accusa- 
tion that  the  Pope  separated  husbands  from  their  wives. 
The  excitement  of  expectation  was  in  the.  air  as  all  the  stran- 
gers in  Rome,  and  the  people,  ever  stirred  like  the  Athe- 
nians by  the  desire  to  hear  some  new  thing,  thronged  the 
corridors  and  ante-chapels  of  the  Lateran,  the  great  portico 
and  square  which  were  for  the  moment  the  centre  of  Rome. 
Again  the  vast  basilica,  the  rustling  mediaeval  crowd  in  all 
its  glow  of  colour  and  picturesqueness  of  grouping,  rises 
before  us.  Few  scenes  more  startling  and  dramatic  have 
ever  occurred  even  in  that  place  of  many  histories. 

The  Pope  had  seated  himself  in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  the 
long  half-circular  line  of  the  great  prelates  extending  down 
the  long  basilica  on  either  side,  the  princes  in  a  tribune 
apart  with  their  attendants,  and  the  crowd  of  priests  filling 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  257 

up  every  corner  and  crevice:  the  Veni  Creator  had  been 
sung:  and  the  proceedings  were  about  to  begin  —  when 
Roland  of  Parma  was  introduced,  no  doubt  with  much  cour- 
tesy and  ceremony,  as  the  bearer  of  letters  from  the  Emperor. 
When  these  letters  were  taken  from  him,  however,  the  envoy, 
instead  of  withdrawing,  as  became  him,  stood  still  at  the 
foot  of  the  Pope's  chair,  and  to  the  consternation,,  as  may 
be  supposed,  of  the  assembly,  addressed  Gregory.  "The 
king,  my  master/7  he  cried,  "and  all  the  bishops,  foreign 
and  Italian,  command  you  to  quit  instantly  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  the  chair  of  Peter."  Then  turning  quickly  to 
the  astonished  assembly,  "  My  brethren,"  he  cried,  "  you  are 
hereby  warned  to  appear  at  Pentecost  in  the  presence  of  the 
king  to  receive  your  Pope  from  him;  for  this  is  no  Pope 
but  a  devouring  wolf." 

The  intensity  of  the  surprise  alone  can  account  for  the 
possibility  of  the  most  rapid  speaker  delivering  himself  of 
so  many  words  before  the  assembly  rose  upon  him  to  shut 
his  insolent  mouth.  The  Bishop  of  Porto  was  the  first  to 
spring  up,  to  cry  "  Seize  him  ! "  but  no  doubt  a  hundred 
hands  were  at  his  throat  before  the  Praetorian  guard,  with 
their  naked  swords  making  a  keen  line  of  steel  through  the 
shadows  of  the  crowded  basilica,  now  full  of  shouts  and 
tumult,  came  in  from  the  gates.  The  wretch  threw  himself 
at  the  feet  of  the  Pope  whom  he  had  that  moment  insulted, 
and  who  seems  to  have  come  down  hurriedly  to  rescue 
him  from  the  fury  of  the  crowd:  and  was  with  difficulty 
placed  under  the  protection  of  the  soldiers.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  the  supreme  excitement  which  must  have 
filled  the  church  as  they  disappeared  with  their  prisoner, 
and  the  agitated  assembly  turned  again  towards  their  head, 
the  insulted  pontiff.  Gregory  was  not  the  man  to  fail  in 
such  an  emergency.  He  entreated  the  assembly  to  retain 
its  composure  and  calm.  "  My  children,"  he  said,  "  let  not 
the  peace  of  the  Church  be  broken  by  you.  Perilous  times, 


258  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME          [CHAP. 

the  gospel  itself  tells  us,  shall  come :  times  in  which  men 
shall  be  lovers  of  their  own  selves,  covetous,  boasters,  diso- 
bedient to  parents.  It  must  needs  be  that  offences  come, 
and  the  Lord  has  sent  us  as  sheep  into  the  midst  of  wolves. 
We  have  long  lived  in  peace,  but  it  may  be  that  God  would 
now  water  his  growing  corn  with  the  blood  of  martyrs. 
We  behold  the  devil's  force  at  length  displaying  itself 
against  us  in  the  open  field.  Now,  therefore,  as  it  behoves 
the  disciples  of  Christ  with  hands  trained  to  the  war,  let  us 
meet  him  and  bravely  contend  with  him  until  the  holy 
faith  which  through  his  practices  appears  to  be  throughout 
the  world  abandoned  and  despised  shall,  the  Lord  fighting 
through  us,  be  restored." 

It  seems  a  strange  descent  from  the  dignity  of  this  address, 
that  the  Pope  should  have  gone  on  to  comment  upon  a 
marvellous  egg  which  it  was  said  had  been  found  near  the 
church  of  St.  Peter,  with  a  strange  design  raised  upon  its 
surface  —  a  buckler  with  the  figure  of  a  serpent  underneath, 
struggling  with  bent  head  and  wriggling  body  to  get  free. 
This  had  seemed,  however,  a  wonderful  portent  to  all  Eome, 
and  though  his  modern  historians  censure  Gregory  for  hav- 
ing no  doubt  prepared  the  prodigy  and  taken  a  despicable 
advantage  of  it,  there  does  not  seem  the  slightest  reason  to 
suppose  either  that  Gregory  was  guilty  of  this,  or  that  he 
was  so  little  a  man  of  his  time  as  not  to  be  himself  as  much 
impressed  by  it  as  any  one  else  there.  Appearances  of  the 
kind,  which  an  age  on  the  lookout  for  portents  can  define, 
and  make  others  see,  are  not  wanting  in  any  period.  The 
crowd  responded  with  cries  that  it  was  he,  the  father  of  the 
Church,  who  was  supreme,  and  that  the  blasphemer  should 
be  cut  off  from  the  Church  and  from  his  throne. 

The  sensation  was  not  lessened  when  the  full  text1  of 

1  On  this  subject  the  records  differ,  some  asserting  these  letters  to 
have  been  read  at  once  on  Roland's  removal,  some  that  the  sitting  was 
adjourned  after  that  wonderful  incident. 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  259 

Henry's  letters,  parts  of  which  we  have  already  quoted,  was 
read  out  to  the  reassembled  council  next  day.  The  words 
which  named  their  Pope  —  their  head  who  had  been  the 
providence  and  the  guide  of  Rome  for  so  many  years  — 
with  contemptuous  abuse  as  "the  monk  Hildebrand,"  must 
have  stirred  that  assembly  to  its  depths.  The  council  with 
one  voice  demanded  from  Gregory  the  excommunication  of 
the  Emperor,  and  of  the  impious  bishops,  false  to  every 
vow,  who  had  ventured  to  launch  an  anathema  against  the 
lawful  head  of  the  Church.  The  solemn  sentence  of  excom- 
munication was  accordingly  pronounced  against  Henry :  his 
subjects  were  freed  from  their  oath  of  allegiance,  and  his 
soul  cut  off  from  the  Church  which  he  had  attempted  to 
rend  in  twain.  Excommunications  had  become  so  common 
in  these  days  that  the  awe  of  the  extraordinary  ceremonial 
was  much  lessened:  but  it  was  no  mere  spiritual  depriva- 
tion, as  all  were  aware,  but  the  most  tremendous  sentence 
which  could  be  launched  against  a  man  not  yet  assured  in 
his  victories  over  his  own  rebellious  tributaries,  and  whose 
throne  depended  upon  the  fidelity  of  powerful  vassals,  many 
of  whom  were  much  more  impressed  by  the  attitude  of  the 
Pope  than  by  that  of  the  king. 

Thus  after  so  many  preliminaries,  treaties  of  peace  and 
declarations  of  war,  the  great  conflict  between  Pope  and 
Emperor,  between  the  Church  and  the  State,  began.  The 
long  feud  which  ran  into  every  local  channel,  and  rent 
every  mediaeval  town  asunder  with  the  struggles  of  Guelfs 
and  Ghibellines,  thus  originated  amid  events  that  shook 
the  world.  The  Synod  of  Worms  and  the  Council  of  Rome, 
with  their  sudden  and  extraordinary  climax  in  the  confer- 
ence of  Canossa,  formed  the  first  act  in  a  drama  played 
upon  a  larger  stage  and  with  more  remarkable  accompani- 
ments than  almost  any  other  in  the  world. 

The  effect  of  Henry's  excommunication  was  extraordinary. 
The  world  of  Christendom,  looking  on  beyond  the  sphere  of 


260  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Henry's  immediate  surroundings  and  partisans,  evidently 
felt  with  an  impulse  almost  unanimous  that  the  anathema 
launched  by  a  partly  lay  assembly  and  a  secular  King  against 
a  reigning  Pope  unassailable  in  virtue,  a  man  of  power  and 
genius  equal  to  his  position,  was  a  sort  of  grim  jest,  the 
issue  of  which  was  to  be  watched  for  with  much  excitement, 
but  not  much  doubt  as  to  the  result,  the  horror  of  the  pro- 
fanity being  the  gravest  point  in  the  matter.  But  no  one 
doubted  the  power  of  Gregory  on  his  part,  amid  his  lawful 
council,  to  excommunicate  and  cut  off  from  the  Church  the 
offending  king.  Already,  before  the'  facts  were  known, 
many  bishops  and  other  ecclesiastics  in  Germany  had  sent 
timid  protests  against  the  act  to  which  in  some  cases  they 
had  been  forced  to  append  their  names:  and  the  public 
opinion  of  the  world,  if  such  an  expression  can  be  used, 
was  undoubtedly  on  Gregory's  side.  Henry's  triumphant 
career  came  to  a  pause.  Not  only  the  judgment  of  the 
Church  and  the  opinion  of  his  peers,  but  the  powers  of 
Heaven  seemed  to  be  against  him,,  One  of  his  greatest 
allies  and  supporters,  Gottfried,  surnamed  II  Gobbo,  the 
son  of  that  Gottfried  of  Lorraine  who  married  Beatrice  of 
Tuscany,  and  who  had  imposed  his  hunchback  son  as  her 
husband  upon  the  young  Matilda,  the  daughter  of  Bea- 
trice—  was  murdered  immediately  after.  The  Bishop  of 
Utrecht,  who  had  been  one  of  the  king's  chief  advisers 
and  confidants  in  his  war  with  Gregory,  died  in  misery 
and  despair,  declaring  with  his  last  breath  that  he  saw  his 
bed  surrounded  by  demons,  and  that  it  was  useless  to  offer 
prayers  for  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  Dukes  of 
Suabia,  Bavaria,  and  Carinthia,  all  faithful  to  the  Church, 
abandoned  the  excommunicated  king.  Some  of  the  greater 
bishops,  trembling  before  the  just  ire  of  the  Pope  whom 
they  had  bearded,  took  the  same  part.  The  half -assuaged 
rebellion  of  the  Saxon  provinces  broke  forth  with  greater 
force  than  ever.  Henry  had  neither  arms  nor  supporters  left 


m.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  261 

to  secure  further  victories,  and  the  very  air  of  the  empire 
was  full  of  the  letters  of  Gregory,  in  which  all  his  attempts 
to  win  the  young  king  to  better  ways,  and  all  the  insults 
which  that  king  had  poured  forth  against  the  Holy  See,  were 
set  forth.  The  punishment,  as  it  appeared  on  all  sides,  was 
prompt  as  thunderbolts  from  heaven  to  follow  the  offence. 

While  Henry  hesitated  in  dismay  and  alarm,  not  know- 
ing what  step  to  take,  seeing  his  friends,  both  lay  and 
clerical,  abandon  him  on  every  side,  consequences  more 
decisive  still  followed.  The  great  princes  met  together  in 
an  assembly  of  their  own  in  Ulm  without  any  reference  to 
Henry,  whom  they  named  in  their  proceedings  the  ex-king, 
and  decided  upon  another  more  formal  meeting  later  to 
choose  a  new  sovereign.  These  potentates  became  doubly 
religious,  doubly  Catholic,  in  their  sudden  revulsion.  They 
surrounded  Gregory's  legates  with  reverence,  they  avoided 
all  communion  with  simoniacal  prelates,  and  even  —  car- 
rying the  Pope's  new  influence  to  the  furthest  extent  — 
with  the  married  priests  against  whom  he  had  long  fulmi- 
nated in  vain.  A  reformation  of  all  evils  seemed  to  be 
about  to  follow.  They  formally  condemned  the  excommuni- 
cated Henry  on  every  point  moral  and  political,  and  though 
they  hesitated  over  the  great  step  of  the  threatened  election 
of  a  king  in  his  place,  they  announced  to  him  that  unless 
he  could  clear  himself  of  the  interdict  before  the  beginning 
of  the  following  year,  when  they  had  decided  to  call  a  diet 
in  Augsburg  to  settle  the  question,  his  fall  would  be  com- 
plete and  without  remedy.  At  the  same  time  they  formally 
and  solemnly  invited  the  presence  of  the  Pope  at  Augsburg 
to  preside  over  and  confirm  their  conclusions.  This  invita- 
tion Gregory  accepted  at  once,  and  Henry,  with  no  alterna- 
tive before  him,  consented  also  to  appear  before  the  tribunal 
of  his  subjects,  and  to  receive  from  their- hands,  and  those 
of  the  Pope  .whom  he  had  so  insulted  and  outraged,  the 
sentence  of  his  fate.  His  humiliation  was  complete. 


262  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

The  assembly  which  was  to  make  this  tremendous  decision 
was  convoked  for  the  2nd  February,  1077,  the  feast  of  the 
Purification,  at  Augsburg.  Gregory  had  accepted  the  invi- 
tation of  the  German  potentates  without  fear;  but  there 
was  much  alarm  in  Rome  at  the  thought  of  such  a  journey 
—  of  the  passage  through  rebellious  Lombardy,  of  the 
terrible  Alps  and  their  dangers,  and  at  the  end  of  all  the 
fierce  German  princes,  who  did  not  always  keep  faith,  and 
whose  minds  before  this  time  might  have  turned  again 
towards  their  native  prince.  The  Pope  set  out,  however, 
under  the  guard  of  Matilda  of  Tuscany  and  her  army,  to 
meet  the  escort  promised  him  from  beyond  the  Alps.  On 
the  other  hand,  Henry  was  surrounded  by  dangers  on  every 
side.  He  had  been  compelled  to  give  up  his  own  special 
friends,  excommunicated  like  himself;  he  had  no  arms,  no 
troops,  no  money;  the  term  which  had  been  allowed  him  to 
make  his  peace  with  the  Pope  was  fast  passing,  and  the 
dreadful  moment  when  it  would  be  his  fate  to  stand  before 
his  revolted  subjects  and  learn  their  decision,  appeared 
before  him  in  all  its  humiliation  and  dishonour.  Already 
various  offenders  had  stolen  across  the  mountains  privately, 
to  make  their  submission  to  Gregory.  It  seemed  the  only 
course  for  the  desperate  king  to  take.  At  length,  after 
much  wavering,  he  made  up  his  mind,  and  escaping  like  a 
fugitive  from  the  town  of  Spires  to  which  he  had  retired, 
he  made  his  way  in  the  midst  of  a  rigorous  winter,  and 
with  incredible  difficulty,  across  the  Alps,  with  the  help 
and  under  the  guardianship  of  Adelaide  of  Susa,  his  mother- 
in-law,  who,  however,  it  is  said,  made  him  pay  a  high  price 
for  her  help.  He  had  begged  of  the  Pope  to  give  him 
audience  at  Rome,  but  this  was  refused:  and  in  partial 
despair  and  confusion  he  set  out  to  accomplish  his  hated 
mission  somehow,  he  did  not  know  where  or  by  what  means. 
A  gleam  of  comfort,  however,  came  to  Henry  on  his  travels. 
He  was  received  with  open  arms  in  Lombardy  where  the 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  263 

revolted  bishops  eagerly  welcomed  him  as  their  deliverer 
from  Gregory  and  his  austerities :  but  there  was  too  much 
at  stake  for  such  an  easy  solution  of  the  matter  as  this. 

In  the  meantime  Gregory  travelled  northwards  surrounded 
by  all  the  strength  of  Tuscany,  accompanied  by  the  brill- 
iant and  devoted  Matilda,  a  daughter  in  love  and  in  years, 
the  pupil  and  youthful  friend,  no  doubt  the  favourite  and 
beloved  companion,  of  a  man  whose  age  and  profession  and 
character  alike  would  seem  to  have  made  any  other  idea 
impossible  even  to  the  slanderers  of  the  middle  ages. 
Matilda  of  Tuscany  has  had  a  great  fate :  not  only  was  she 
the  idol  of  her  own  people  and  the  admired  of  her  own  age 
—  such  an  impossible  and  absurd  piece  of  slander  as  that 
which  linked  the  name  of  a  beautiful  young  woman  with 
that  of  the  austere  and  aged  Gregory  being  apparently  the 
only  one  which  had  ever  been  breathed  against  her :  —  but 
the  great  poets  of  her  country  have  placed  her,  one  in  the 
sweeter  aspect  of  a  ministering  angel  of  heaven,  the  other 
in  that  of  the  most  heroic  of  feminine  warriors,  on  the 
heights  of  poetic  fame.  Matilda  on  the  banks  of  that  sacred 
river  of  Lethe  where  all  that  is  unhappy  is  forgotten,  who 
is  but  one  degree  less  sacred  to  Dante  than  his  own  Beatrice 
in  Paradise:  and  Clorinda,  the  warrior  maiden  of  Tasso, 
have  carried  the  image  of  this  noble  princess  to  the  hearts 
of  many  an  after  age.  The  hunchback  husband  imposed 
upon  her  in  her  extreme  youth,  the  close  union  between  her 
and  her  mother  Beatrice,  the  independent  court  held  by 
these  two  ladies,  their  prominent  place  among  all  the  great 
minds  of  their  time  —  and  not  least  the  faithful  friendship 
of  both  with  the  great  Gregory,  combine  to  make  this  young 
princess  one  of  the  most  interesting  figures  of  her  day. 
The  usual  solaces  of  life  had  been  cut  off  from  her  at  the 
beginning  by  her  loveless  marriage.  She  had  no  children. 
She  was  at  this  period  of  her  career  alone  in  the  world, 
her  mother  having  recently  died,  following  II  Gobbo  very 


264  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

closely  to  the  grave.  Henceforward  Matilda  had  more  to 
do  in  the  field  and  council  chamber  than  with  the  ordinary 
delights  of  life. 

The  Pope  had  left  Kome  with  many  anxieties  on  his 
mind,  fully  appreciating  the  dangers  of  the  journey  before 
him,  and  not  knowing  if  he  might  ever  see  the  beloved  city 
again.  While  he  was  on  the  way  the  news  reached  him 
that  Henry,  whom  he  had  refused  to  receive  in  Rome,  was 
on  his  way  across  the  Alps,  and  as  probably  the  details  of 
that  painful  journey  were  unknown,  and  the  first  idea  would 
be  that  the  king  was  coming  with  an  army  in  full  force  — 
still  greater  anxieties,  if  not  alarms,  must  have  been  awak- 
ened among  the  Pope's  supporters.  It  was  still  more  alarm- 
ing to  find  that  the  German  escort  which  was  to  have  met 
him  at  Mantua  had  not  been  sent,  the  hearts  of  the  princes 
having  failed  them,  and  their  plans  having  fallen  into  con- 
fusion at  the  news  of  the  king's  escape.  Henry  had  been 
received  with  enthusiasm  in  Lombardy,  always  rebellious, 
and  might  make  his  appearance  any  day  to  overpower  the 
chivalry  of  Tuscany,  and  put  the  lives  of  both  Pope  and 
Princess  in  danger.  They  were  on  the  road  to  Mantua 
when  this  news  reached  them,  and  in  the  anxious  council 
of  war  immediately  held,  it  was  resolved  that  the  strong 
castle  of  Canossa,  supposed  to  be  impregnable,  should  be, 
for  the  moment  at  least,  the  Pope's  shelter  and  resting- 
place.  One  of  the  great  strongholds  of  Italy,  built  like  so 
many  on  a  formidable  point  oT  rock,  of  itself  almost  inac- 
cessible, and  surrounded  by  three  lines  of  fortified  walls, 
among  which  no  doubt  clustered  the  rude  little  dwellings 
of  a  host  of  retainers  —  the  situation  of  this  formidable 
place  was  one  which  promised  complete  protection :  and  the 
name  of  the  Tuscan  castle  has  since  become  one  of  the  best- 
known  names  in  history,  as  the  incident  which  followed 
contains  some  of  the  most  picturesque  and  remarkable 
scenes  on  record.  The  castle  had  already  a  romantic  story; 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  265 

it  had  sheltered  many  a  fugitive;  forlorn  princesses  had 
taken  refuge  within  its  walls  from  the  pursuit  of  suitors  or 
of  enemies,  the  one  as  dangerous  as  the  other.  Painfully 
carried  up  in  his  litter  by  those  steep  and  dangerous  ways, 
from  one  narrow  platform  of  the  cliff  to  another,  with  the 
great  stretch  of  the  landscape  ever  widening  as  he  gained 
a  higher  point,  and  the  vast  vault  of  heaven  rounding  to  a 
vaster  horizon,  the  Pope  gained  this  eyrie  of  safety,  this 
eagle's  nest  among  the  clouds. 

We  hear  of  no  luxuries,  not  even  those  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  discourse,  which  to  many  an  ascetic  have 
represented,  and  represented  well,  the  happiness  of  life,  in 
this  retreat  of  Gregory  with  his  beautiful  hostess,  amid 
his  and  her  friends.  By  his  side,  indeed,  was  Hugo,  Abbot 
of  @luny,  one  of  his  most  cherished  and  life-long  compan- 
ions; but  the  Pope  spent  his  days  of  seclusion  in  prayer 
and  anxious  thought.  The  great  plain  that  lay  at  his  feet, 
should  it  be  deluged  with  Christian  blood  once  more,  should 
brother  stand  against  brother  in  arms,  and  Italy  be  crushed 
under  the  remorseless  foot  which  even  the  more  patient 
Teuton  had  not  been  able  to  bear  ?  Many  melancholy 
thoughts  were  no  doubt  in  Gregory's  mind  in  that  great 
fastness  surrounded  by  all  the  ramparts  of  nature  and  of 
art.  He  had  dreamed — before  the  name  of  Crusade  had 
yet  been  heard  or  thought  of  —  of  an  expedition  to  Jeru- 
salem at  the  head  of  all  who  loved  the  Lord,  himself  in  his 
age  and  weakness  the  leader  of  an  army  composed  of  valiant 
and  generous  hearts  from  every  quarter  of  the  world,  to 
redeem  the  Sepulchre  of  the  Lord,  and  crush  the  rising 
power  of  the  Saracens.  This  had  been  the  favourite  imagi- 
nation of  his  mind  —  though  as  yet  it  called  forth  little 
sympathy  from  those  about  him  —  for  some  years  past. 
Instead  of  that  noble  expedition  was  it  possible  that,  per- 
haps partly  by  his  fault,  Christians  were  about  to  fly  at  each 
other's  throats  and  the  world  to  be  again  torn  asunder  by 


266  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

intestine  warfare  ?  But  such  thoughts  as  these  were  not 
the  thoughts  of  the  eleventh  century.  Gregory  might  shed 
tears  before  his  God  at  the  thought  of  bloodshed :  but  that 
his  position  in  the  presence  of  the  Highest  was  the  only 
right  one,  and  his  opponent's  that  of  the  most  dangerous 
wrong,  was  no  doubt  his  assured  conviction.  He  awaited 
the  progress  of  events,  knowing  as  little  as  the  humblest 
man-at-arms  what  was  going  to  happen,  with  a  troubled 
heart. 

Nevertheless  the  retirement  of  these  first  days  was  broken 
by  many  hurried  arrivals  which  were  more  or  less  of  good 
omen.  One  by  one  the  proud  German  bishops  specially 
designated  in  Gregory's  acts  .of  excommunication,  and 
nobles  more  haughty  still,  under  the  same  burden,  climbed 
the  steep  paths  of  Canossa,  and  penetrated  from  gate  to 
gate,  barefooted  pilgrims  denuding  themselves  of  every 
vestige  of  power.  "Cursed  be  he  who  turns  back  his 
sword  from  the  blood,"  that  is,  who  weakly  pauses  in  the 
execution  of  a  divine  sentence  —  was  one  of  Gregory's 
maxims.  He  received  these  successive  suppliants  with 
more  sternness  than  sweetness.  "Mercy,"  he  said,  "can 
never  be  refused  to  those  who  acknowledge  and  deplore 
their  sins ;  but  long  disobedience,  like  rust  on  a  sword,  can 
be  burned  out  only  by  the  fire  of  a  long  repentance ;  "  and 
he  sent  them  one  by  one  to  solitary  chambers  in  which, 
with  the  sparest  of  nourishment,  they  might  reflect  upon 
their  sins.  After  a  sufficient  seclusion,  however,  they 
were  liberated  and  sent  away,  reprimanded  yet  blessed  — 
at  least  the  laymen  among  them.  It  remained  now  to  se'e 
what  Henry  would  do. 

Henry  was  no  longer  at  the  lowest  ebb  of  his  fortunes. 
The  princes  of  Germany  had  come  to  a  pause :  they  had  not 
sent  the  promised  escort  for  the  Pope ;  they  were  irresolute, 
not  knowing  what  step  to  take  next :  and  all  Lombardy  had 
risen  to  welcome  the  king;  he  had  the  support  of  every 


in.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY   VII.  269 

schismatic  bishop,  every  censured  priest,  and  of  the  excited 
people  who  were  hostile  to  the  pretensions  of  Rome,  or 
rather  to  the  severe  purity  of  Gregory  which  was  so  uncom- 
promising and  determined.  But  by  some  unaccountable 
check  upon  his  high  spirit  Henry,  for  the  moment,  was  not 
moved  to  further  rebellion  either  by  the  support  of  a  Lom- 
bard army  at  his  back,  or  by  the  hopes  of  his  reviving  fol- 
lowers at  home.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  by 
her  mother,  Adelaide  of  Susa,  and  perhaps  the  veneration 
of  the  women  for  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  dread  of 
its  penalties,  affected  him,  although  he  had  no  love  for  the 
wife  of  whom  he  had  tried  so  hard  to  get  rid.  Whatever  was 
the  explanation  it  is  very  evident,  at  least,  that  his  spirit 
was  cowed  and  that  he  saw  nothing  before  him  but  submis- 
sion. He  went  on  probably  to  Parma,  with  a  small  and 
unarmed  retinue,  leaving  his  turbulent  Lombard  followers 
behind.  On  the  way  he  sent  various  messengers  before 
him,  asking  for  an  interview  with  Matilda,  who  was  sup- 
posed likely  to  move  the  Pope  in  his  favour.  We  are  not 
told  where  the  meeting  took  place,  but  probably  it  was  in 
some  wondering  village  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  where  the 
princely  train  from  the  castle,  the  great  Contessa,  the  still 
greater  abbot,  Hugo  of  Cluny,  and  "  many  of  the  principal 
Italian  princes, "  met  the  wandering  pilgrim  party,  without 
sign  or  evidence  of  royalty  —  Henry  and  his  Queen,  the 
Marchesa  Adelaide  of  Este,  her  son  Amadeo,  and  other 
great  persons  in  the  same  disguise  of  humility.  The  ladies 
on  either  side  were  related  to  each  other,  and  all  belonged 
to  that  close  circle  of  the  reigning  class,  in  which  every 
man  calls  his  neighbour  brother  or  cousin.  Hugo  of  Cluny 
was  the  godfather  of  the  king  and  loved  him,  and  Adelaide, 
though  on  the  side  of  her  son-in-law,  and  now  his  eager 
champion,  was  a  true  and  faithful  daughter  of  the  Church. 
Henry  declared  on  the  other  side  to  his  anxious  friends 
that  the  accusations  of  the  Germans  were  not  true,  that  he 


270  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

was  not  as  they  had  painted  him :  and  implored  their  inter- 
cession with  the  Pope,  not  for  any  temporal  advantage,  but 
solely  to  be  delivered  from  the  anathema  which  weighed 
upon  his  soul.  And  Matilda  and  the  others  were  but  too 
anxious  to  make  peace  and  put  faith  in  all  he  said. 

It  is  very  likely  that  Gregory  believed  none  of  these  pro- 
testations, but  now  or  never,  certainly  he  was  bound  to  fulfil 
his  own  maxim,  and  not  to  turn  back  his  sword  from  the 
blood.  All  the  arguments  of  Henry's  friends  could  not 
induce  him  to  grant  an  easy  absolution  at  the  king's  first 
word.  Finally  he  consented  to  receive  him  as  a  penitent,  but 
in  no  other  character.  Probably  it  was  while  the  prayers 
and  entreaties  of  Matilda  and  of  Abbot  Hugo  were  still 
going  on  in  the  castle  that  Henry  came  day  by  day,  bare- 
footed, in  a  humble  tunic  of  woollen  cloth,  and  waited  at  the 
gates  to  know  the  result.  It  was  "an  atrocious  winter," 
such  as  had  never  been  seen  before,  with  continual  snow- 
storms, and  the  rugged  paths  and  stairs  up  the  cliff,  never 
easy,  were  coated  with  frost.  Twice  over  the  king  climbed 
with  naked  feet  as  far  as  the  second  circle  of  the  walls,  but 
only  to  be  turned  away.  It  seems  little  short  of  a  miracle 
that  such  a  man,  in  such  circumstances,  should  have  so  per- 
severed. On  the  third  day  the  pleaders  within  had  been 
successful,  and  Henry  was  admitted,  on  the  generous  guar- 
antee of  Matilda,  who  took  upon  her  to  answer  for  him  that 
his  repentance  was  genuine.  At  last  the  culprit  was  led 
into  the  Pope's  presence.  He  was  made  to  give  various 
promises  of  amendment,  which  were  accepted,  not  on  his 
oath,  a  last  and  supreme  humiliation,  but  on  the  undertak- 
ing of  various  of  his  friends  who  swore,  rashly  one  cannot 
but  think,  on  the  relics  of  the  saints  that  the  king  would 
keep  his  promises.  This  is  the  document  to  which  these 
generous  friends  set  their  seals. 

"I,  Henry,  King,  in  respect  to  the  complaints  of  the  archbishops, 
bishops,  dukes,  counts  and  other  princes  of  the  Teutonic  kingdom,  and 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  271 

of  all  those  who  follow  them,  within  the  time  fixed  by  the  Lord  Pope 
will  do  justice  according  to  his  sentence,  or  make  peace  according  to 
his  advice  if  no  unavoidable  hindrance  occurs ;  and  in  that  case,  the 
moment  the  hindrance  is  taken  away  I  will  be  ready  to  fulfil  my 
promise.  In  addition,  if  the  Lord  Pope  Gregory  desires  to  cross  the 
Alps,  or  go  into  other  countries,  he  shall  be  held  safe  on  my  part,  and 
on  the  part  of  those  whom  I  command,  from  all  danger  of  death,  mu- 
tilation, or  captivity,  himself  and  those  who  form  his  escort,  both  dur- 
ing the  journey,  as  long  as  he  remains,  and  on  the  return  ;  nothing 
shall  be  done  by  me  contrary  to  his  dignity,  and  if  anything  is  done  by 
others,  I  will  lend  him  my  help  in  good  faith  according  to  my  power." 

This  does  not  seem  a  very  large  bond. 

Next  day,  the  25th  January,  1077,  Henry  came  again  in 
the  same  penitential  dress,  but  this  time  according  to  formal 
appointment.  He  came  into  the  room  where  the  Pope 
awaited  him,  followed  by  all  the  excommunicated  princes 
in  his  train,  barefooted  and  half  frozen  with  the  painful 
climb  up  the  rocky  paths  ;  and  throwing  himself  on  the 
floor  before  Gregory,  asked  his  pardon,  which  Gregory  gave, 
shedding  many  tears  over  the  penitents.  They  were  then 
received  back  into  the  Church  with  all  the  due  ceremonials, 
the  Pope  in  his  vestments,  the  penitents  naked  to  the  waist, 
despoiled  of  all  ornaments  and  dignities.  In  the  castle 
church,  of  which  now  nothing  but  the  foundations  remain, 
Gregory  solemnly  absolved  the  miserable  party,  and  offered 
them  the  Communion.  At  this  act  a  very  strange  scene  took 
place.  The  Pope,  the  great  assailant  of  Simony,  had  him- 
self been  accused  of  it,  ridiculous  as  was  the  accusation  in 
a  case  like  his,  of  which  every  circumstance  was  so  perfectly 
known,  and  formally  by  Henry  himself  in  the  insolent  com- 
mand already  quoted  to  abandon  the  papal  see.  At  the 
moment  of  communion,  in  the  most  solemn  part  of  the  service, 
the  Pope  turned  to  Henry,  standing  before  the  altar,  with 
the  host  in  his  hands.  He  appealed  to  God  in  the  most  im- 
pressive manner  according  to  the  usage  of  the  time. 

"You  have  long  and  often  accused  me,'7  said  the  Pope, 
"of  having  usurped  the  Apostolical  chair  by  Simony.  .  .  . 
I  now  hold  the  body  of  the  Saviour  in  my  hands,  which  I  am 


272  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

about  to  take.  Let  Him  be  the  witness  of  my  innocence : 
let  God  Himself  all  powerful  absolve  me  to-day  of  the  crime 
imputed  to  me  if  I  am  innocent,  or  strike  me  with  sudden 
death  if  I  am  guilty."  Then  after  a  solemn  pause  he  added : 
"  My  son,  do  as  I  have  done :  if  you  are  certain  of  your  in- 
nocence, if  your  reputation  is  falsely  attacked  by  the  lies  of 
your  rivals,  deliver  the  Church  of  God  from  a  scandal  and 
yourself  from  suspicion ;  take  the  body  of  Our  Lord,  that 
your  innocence  may  have  God  for  witness,  that  the  mouth 
of  your  enemies  may  be  stopped,  and  that  I  —  henceforward, 
your  advocate  and  the  most  faithful  defender  of  your 
cause  —  may  reconcile  you  with  your  nobles,  give  you  back 
your  kingdom,  and  that  the  tempest  of  civil  war  which  has 
so  long  afflicted  the  State  may  henceforth  be  laid  at  rest." 

Would  a  guilty  king  in  these  unbelieving  days  venture 
upon  such  a  pledge  ?  Henry-  at  least  was  incapable  of  it. 
He  dared  not  call  God  to  witness  against  the  truth,  and  re- 
fused, trembling,  murmuring  confused  excuses  to  take  this 
supreme  test.  The  mass  was  accomplished  without  the 
communion  of  the  king ;  but  not  the  less  he  was  absolved 
and  the  anathema  taken  from  his  head. 

In  a  letter  written  immediately  after,  Gregory  informed 
the  German  princes  of  what  he  had  done,  adding  that  he 
still  desired  to  cross  the  Alps  and  assist  them  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  great  question  remaining,  Henry  having  been 
avowedly  received  by  him  as  a  penitent,  but  not  in  any  way 
as  a  restored  king. 

This  great  historical  event,  which  has  been  the  subject 
of  so  much  commentary  and  discussion,  and  has  been  sup- 
posed to  mark  so  great  a  step  in  the  power  and  pretensions 
of  the  Popes,  was  in  fact  without  any  immediate  effect  in 
history.  Henry  went  forth  wroth  and  sore,  humiliated  but 
not  humbled,  and  thinking  of  nothing  so  much  as  how  to 
return  to  Gregory  the  shame  he  had  himself  suffered.  And 
Gregory  remained  in  his  stronghold  as  little  convinced  of 


m.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  273 

any  advantage  attained,  as  lie  had  been  of  Henry's  repent- 
ance. He  is  said  to  have  answered  the  Saxon  envoys  who 
reproached  him  with  his  leniency,  by  a  grim  reassurance 
which  is  almost  cynical.  "He  goes  back  worse  than  he 
came,"  said  the  Pope.  It  was  indeed  impossible  that  the 
eye  of  a  man  so  conversant  with  men  as  Gregory  should  not 
have  perceived  how  entirely  his  penitent's  action  was  diplo- 
matic and  assumed  for  a  purpose,  and  what  a  solemn  farce 
Henry  was  playing  as  he  stood  barefooted  in  the  snow,  to 
obtain  the  absolution  which  was  his  only  chance  for  Ger- 
many. It  is  perfectly  permissible  to  believe  that  not  only 
the  determination  not  "to  turn  back  his  sword  from  the 
blood"  or  to  fail  in  exacting  every  punctilio  of  penance, 
but  a  natural  impulse  of  scorn  for  the  histrionic  exhibition 
made  for  the  benefit  of  the  great  audience  across  the  Alps, 
induced  the  Pope  to  keep  the  king  dangling  at  those  icy 
gates.  That  there  should  have  been  in  Gregory's  mind, 
along  with  this  conviction,  momentary  relentings  of  hope 
that  the  penitent's  heart  might  really  be  touched,  was 
equally  natural,  and  that  it  was  one  of  these  sudden 
impulses  which  moved  him  to  the  startling  and  solemn 
appeal  to  God  over  the  sacramental  host  which  formed  so 
remarkable  an  incident  in  the  ceremonial,  may  be  taken  for 
granted.  In  that  age  miracles  were  more  than  common, 
they  were  looked  for  and  expected;  and  in  all  ages  the 
miracle  which  we  call  conversion,  the  sudden  and  inex- 
plainable  movement  of  a  heart,  touched  and  turned  in  an 
instant  from  evil  to  good,  has  been  known  and  proved. 
That  a  priest  at  the  altar  should  hope  that  it  might  be  his, 
by  some  burning  word  or  act,  to  convey  that  inexpressible 
touch  was  a  very  human  and  natural  hope :  and  yet  Greg- 
ory knew  well  in  his  after  survey  of  what  had  passed  that 
the  false  penitent  went  away  worse  than  he  came.  He 
wrote,  however,  an  account  of  the  matter  to  the  German 
princes,  who  looked  on  trembling  for  the  consequences,  and 


274  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

probably  blaming  the  Pope  for  an  action  that  might  destroy 
all  their  combinations  —  in  which  he  described  to  them 
Henry's  penitence  and  promise,  without  implying  a  doubt 
of  the  sincerity  of  either,  but  with  a  full  statement  of  the 
fact  that  the  absolution  awarded  to  the  man  made  no  dif- 
ference in  respect  to  the  king. 

"Things  being  thus  arranged  [writes  the  Pope]  in  order  to  secure, 
by  the  help  of  God,  the  peace  of  the  Church  and  the  union  of  the 
Kingdom,  which  we  have  so  long  desired,  we  are  anxious  to  pursue  our 
journey  into  your  countries  on  the  first  occasion  possible ;  for  we  de- 
sire you  to  know,  as  you  may  perceive  from  the  written  engagements, 
that  everything  is  still  in  suspense,  so  that  our  arrival  among  you  and 
the  unanimity  of  your  council  is  absolutely  necessary  to  settle  matters. 
Therefore  be  very  attentive  to  continue  as  you  have  begun  in  faith  and 
the  love  of  justice,  and  understand  that  we  have  done  nothing  for  the 
king,  except  to  tell  him  that  he  might  trust  to  us  to  help  him  in  such 
things  as  may  touch  his  salvation  and  his  honour,  with  justice  and  with 
mercy,  without  putting  our  soul  and  his  in  peril." 

In  the  meantime  Henry  had  enough  to  do  in  winning  back 
again  to  his  side  the  rebellious  Lombards,  who  considered 
his  submission  to  the  Pope,  however  artificial,  a  desertion 
of  their  cause,  and  shut  upon  him  the  gates  of  their  cities, 
which  before  his  visit  to  Canossa  had  been  thrown  wide 
open.  He  had  apparently,  though  only  for  a  moment,  lost 
them,  while  he  had  not  regained  the  sympathies  of  Ger- 
many. There  was  nothing  for  it  but  a  new  apostasy,  throw- 
ing over  of  his  promises,  and  reassumption  of  the  leadership 
of  the  schismatic  party,  which  made  the  position  of  Greg- 
ory, surrounded  by  that  angry  sea  of  Lombard  rebellion 
which  beat  against  the  base  of  his  rocky  stronghold,  a  very 
dangerous  one.  Through  the  whole  spring  of  1077  the 
Pope  was  more  or  less  confined  to  the  Castle  of  Canossa  or 
other  similar  fortresses,  under  the  vigilant  care  of  Matilda; 
and  it  was  from  these  strong  places  that  he  wrote  a  succes- 
sion of  remarkable  letters  to  the  nobles  of  Germany,  who, 
strongly  set  upon  the  Diet  in  which  the  affairs  of  the  king- 
dom were  to  be  placed  on  a  permanent  footing,  were  pro- 


m.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  275 

ceeding  to  carry  out  their  intention  without  waiting  either 
for  the  presence  of  Gregory  which  they  had  invited,  or 
Henry  whose  interests  were  at  stake.  Gregory  did  every- 
thing that  was  possible  to  delay  the  Diet  until  he  could  be 
present  at  it.  He  was  anxious  also  to  delay  whatever  great 
step  might  be  in  contemplation  until  the  mind  of  the  coun- 
try was  a  little  less  anxious  and  disturbed:  and  he  desired 
to  be  present,  not  only  in  the  position  of  Arbitrator,  but 
also  to  moderate  with  his  counsels  the  excited  spirits,  and 
prevent  if  possible  any  great  catastrophe. 

We  may  allow,  as  it  is  one  of  the  conventionalities  of 
history  to  assert,  that  Gregory's  intention  was  to  establish 
in  such  matters  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Popes  and  make  it 
apparent  to  the  world  that  thrones  and  principalities  were 
at  the  disposition  of  the  Church.  But  at  the  same  time 
Gregory  was,  like  all  men,  chiefly  moved  by  the  immediate 
question  before  him,  and  he  was  a  man  sincerely  occupied 
with  what  was  best  for  both  Church  and  State,  fearing  the 
rashness  of  an  angry  and  excited  assembly,  and  remember- 
ing his  promise  to  do  what  he  could  for  his  most  unworthy 
penitent ;  and  we  see  no  reason  to  believe  that  his  purposes 
were  not,  according  to  his  perception  of  his  duty,  honest 
and  noble.  He  retained  his  hope  of  proceeding  to  Germany 
as  long  as  that  was  possible,  asking  again  and  again  for  the 
guide  and  escort  promised,  even  asking  from  Henry  a  safe 
conduct  through  the  territory  now  held  by  him.  Even 
after  the  election  at  Forchheim  of  Eudolf  of  Suabia  as 
king  in  the  place  of  Henry,  he  continued  to  urge  upon  the 
legates  whom  he  had  sent  to  that  assembly  the  necessity 
for  his  presence.  And  he  undoubtedly  did  this  on  the 
highest  ground  possible,  putting  forth  his  right  to  judge 
in  the  matter  in  the  very  clearest  words.  He  bids  his  mes- 
sengers in  the  name  of  St.  Peter  to  summon  the  heads  of 
both  parties,  Henry  and  Rudolf,  to  make  his  journey  pos- 
sible. 


276  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

"  With  the  advice  of  the  clergy  and  laymen  fearing  God,  we  desire 
to  judge  between  the  two  kings,  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  point  out 
which  of  the  two  parties  is  most  justly  to  be  entrusted  with  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  State.  You  are  aware  that  it  is  our  duty,  and  that  it 
appertains  to  the  providential  wisdom  of  the  Apostolic  See,  to  judge 
the  governments  of  the  great  Christian  kingdoms  and  to  regulate  them 
under  the  inspiration  of  justice.  The  question  between  these  two 
princes  is  so  grave,  and  the  consequences  may  be  so  dangerous,  that  if 
it  was  for  any  reason  neglected  by  us,  it  would  bring  not  only  upon  us 
and  upon  them,  but  on  the  Church  entire,  great  and  lamentable  mis- 
fortune. Therefore,  if  one  or  other  of  these  kings  refuses  to  yield  to 
our  decision  and  conform  to  our  counsels,  and  if,  lighting  the  torch  of 
pride  and  human  covetousness  against  the  honour  of  God,  he  aspires 
in  his  fury  to  the  desolation  of  the  Roman  Empire,  resist  him  in  every 
way,  by  every  means,  to  the  death  if  necessary,  in  our  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  blessed  Peter." 

The  Pope  in  another  letter  makes  his  appeal  no  longer  to 
the  ruling  class  but  to  the  entire  people.  He  informs  "all 
the  faithful  of  Christ  in  the  Teutonic  empire  "  that  he  has 
sent  his  legates  to  both  kings  to  demand  of  them  both 
"  either  in  their  own  persons  or  by  sufficient  messengers  " 
to  open  the  way  for  his  journey  to  Germany  in  order  with 
the  help  of  God  to  judge  the  question  between  them. 

"  Our  heart  is  full  of  sadness  and  sorrow  to  think  that  for  the  pride 
of  one  man  so  many  thousands  of  Christians  may  be  delivered  over  to 
death  both  temporal  and  eternal,  the  Christian  religion  shaken  to  its 
foundations,  and  the  Roman  Empire  precipitated  into  ruin.  Both  of 
these  kings  seek  aid  from  us,  or  rather  from  the  Apostolic  See,  which 
we  occupy,  though  unworthy ;  and  we,  trusting  in  the  mercy  of 
Almighty  God,  and  the  help  of  the  blessed  Peter,  with  the  aid  of  your 
advice,  you  who  fear  God  and  love  the  Church,  are  ready  to  examine 
with  care  the  right  on  either  side  and  to  help  him  whom  justice  noto- 
riously calls  to  the  administration  of  the  kingdom.  .  .  . 

"  You  know,  dear  brethren,  that  since  our  departure  from  Rome  we 
have  lived  in  the  midst  of  dangers  among  the  enemies  of  the  faith ;  but 
neither  from  fear  nor  from  love  have  we  promised  any  help,  but  justice 
to  one  or  other  of  these  kings.  We  prefer  to  die,  if  necessary,  rather 
than  to  consent  by  our  own  will  that  the  Church  of  God  should  be  put 
from  her  place  ;  for  we  know  that  we  have  been  ordained  and  set  upon 
the  apostolic  chair  in  order  to  seek  in  our  life  not  our  own  interests  but 
those  of  Christ,  and  to  follow  through  a  thousand  labours  in  the  steps 
of  the  fathers  to  the  future  and  eternal  repose,  by  the  mercy  of  God." 

The  reader  must  remember  that  Gregory  had  very  good 
reason  for  all  that  he  said,  and  that  irrespective  of  the 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  277 

claims  of  the  Church  a  wise  and  impartial  umpire  at  such 
a  moment  might  have  been  of  the  last  importance  to  Ger- 
many; also  that  his  services  had  been  asked  for  in  this 
capacity,  and  that  therefore  he  had  a  right  to  insist  upon 
being  heard.  The  position  which  he  claimed  had  been 
offered  to  him;  and  he  was  entitled  to  ask  that  such  an 
important  matter  should  not  be  settled  in  his  absence. 

The  remonstrances  which  the  Pope  continued  to  make  by 
his  own  voice  and  those  of  his  legates  as  long  as  any  remon- 
strance was  possible,  were  however  regarded  by  neither 
party.  Neither  the  authority  of  Eome  nor  the  visible  wis- 
dom of  settling  a  question  which  must  convulse  the  world 
and  tear  Germany  in  pieces,  peacefully  and  on  the  founda- 
tion of  justice  if  that  were  possible,  as  urged  by  Gregory 
—  could  prevail,  nor  ever  has  prevailed  on  any  similar 
occasion  against  the  passions  and  ambitions  of  men.  It 
was  a  devout  imagination,  appealing  to  certain  minds  here 
and  there  by  the  highest  motives,  and  naturally  by  very 
different  ones  to  all  the  interested  souls  likely  to  be  advan- 
taged by  it,  which  always  form  the  reverse  of  the  medal ; 
but  men  with  arms  in  their  hands  and  all  the  excitements 
of  faction  and  party,  of  imperial  loss  and  gain  around  them, 
were  little  like  to  await  a  severe  and  impartial  judgment. 
The  German  bishops  made  a  curious  remonstrance  in  their 
turn  against  the  reception  by  Gregory  of  Henry's  profes- 
sions of  penitence,  and  on  either  side  there  was  a  band  of 
ecclesiastics,  presumably  not  all  good  or  all  bad  perplexing 
every  judgment. 

We  have  fortunately  nothing  to  do  with  the  bloody 
struggles  of  Rudolf  and  Henry.  When  the  latter  made  his 
way  again  over  the  Alps,  to  defend  his  rights,  carrying 
with  him  the  Iron  Crown  which  Gregory's  refusal  had  pre- 
vented him  from  assuming  —  he  carried  it  away  however, 
though  he  did  not  dare  to  put  it  on,  a  curious  mixture  of 
timidity  and  furtive  daring  —  the  Pope,  up  to  that  moment 


278  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

virtually  confined  within  the  circle  of  the  mountain  strong- 
holds of  Tuscany,  returned  to  Rome:  where  he  continued 
to  be  assailed  by  constant  and  repeated  entreaties  to  take 
up  one  or  the  other  side,  his  own  council  of  the  Lateran 
inclining  towards  Henry.  But  nothing  moved  him  from 
his  determination  that  this  question  should  be  decided  by 
a  Diet  under  his  own  presidence,  and  by  that  alone.  This 
question  runs  through  the  entire  story  of  the  period  from 
year  to  year.  No  council  —  and  in  addition  to  the  usual 
yearly  council  held  always  in  the  beginning  of  Lent,  at  the 
Lateran,  there  seem  to  have  been  various  others  between 
whiles,  made  compulsory  by  the  agitation  of  the  time  — 
could  take  place  without  the  arrival  of  the  two  bands  of 
German  ambassadors,  one  from  Henry  and  the  other  from 
Rudolf,  to  plead  the  cause  of  their  respective  masters,  both 
professing  all  obedience,  and  inviting  a  decision  in  their 
favour  by  every  argument :  but  neither  taking  a  single  step 
to  bring  about  the  one  thing  which  the  Pope  demanded  —  a 
lawful  assembly  to  settle  the  question. 

There  is  no  pretence  that  Gregory  treated  them  with  any- 
thing but  the  severest  impartiality,  or  that  he  at  any  time 
departed  from  the  condition  he  had  proposed  from  the  first 
—  the  only  preference  given  to  One  above  the  other  being 
that  he  is  said  to  have  sent  his  apostolical  blessing  to 
Eudolf,  a  virtuous  prince  and  his  friend,  and  not  to  Henry 
the  apostate  and  false  penitent,  which  is  scarcely  wonder- 
ful. But  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  agitation  in  which  the 
constant  arrival  of  these  ambassadors  must  have  kept  Rome, 
a  city  so  prone  to  agitation,  and  with  so  many  parties  within 
its  own  walls,  seditious  nobles  and  undisciplined  priests, 
and  the  ever-restless,  ever-factious  populace,  struggling 
continually  for  some  new  thing.  The  envoys  of  Henry 
would  seem  to  have  had  more  or  less  the  popular  favour: 
they  were  probably  a  more  showy  band  than  the  heavier 
Saxons :  and  Henry's  name  and  the  prestige  of  his  great 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  279 

father,  and  all  those  royal  shows  which  must  still  have 
been  remembered  in  the  city,  the  coronation  of  the  former 
Henry  in  St.  Peter's,  and  all  its  attendant  ceremonials  and 
expenses,  must  have  attached  a  certain  interest  to  his  name. 
Agnes  too,  the  empress,  who  had  died  so  recently  in  the 
odour  of  sanctity  among  them,  must  have  left  behind  her, 
whether  she  loved  him  or  not,  a  certain  prepossession  in 
favour  of  her  son.  And  the  crowd  took  sides  no  doubt,  and 
in  its  crushing  and  pressing  to  see  the  strangers,  in  the 
great  Lateran  square  or  by  the  gates  of  their  lodging, 
formed  itself  into  parties  attracted  by  a  glance  or  a  smile, 
made  into  enemies  by  a  hasty  word,  and  preparing  for  the 
greater  troubles  and  conflicts  which  were  about  to  come. 

In  the  midst  of  these  continual  arrivals  and  departures 
and  while  the  trumpets  of  the  Saxon  or  the  German  party 
were  still  tingling  in  the  air,  and  the  velvet  and  jewels  of 
the  ambassadors  had  scarcely  ceased  to  gleam  among  the 
dark  robes  of  the  clergy,  there  came  up  other  matters  of  a 
nature  more  suitable  to  the  sacred  courts  and  the  interests 
of  the  Church.  Berengarius  of  Tours,  a  mild  and  specu- 
lative thinker,  as  often  convincing  himself  that  he  was 
wrong  as  proving  himself  to  be  right,  appeared  before  the 
council  of  1079  to  answer  for  certain  heresies  respecting 
the  Eucharist,  of  which  there  had  often  already  been  ques- 
tion. His  opinions  were  those  of  Luther,  of  whom  he  is 
constantly  called  the  precursor:  but  there  was  little  of 
Luther's  strength  in  this  gentle  heretic,  who  had  already 
recanted  publicly,  and  then  resumed  his  peculiar  teachings, 
with  a  simplicity  that  for  a  time  disarmed  criticism.  Greg- 
ory had  always  been  his  friend  and  protector,  tolerating  if 
not  sharing  his  opinions,  which  were  not  such  as  moved  or 
interested  deeply  the  Church  at  the  moment :  for  the  age 
was  not  heretical,  and  the  example  of  such  a  candid  offender, 
who  did  not  attempt  to  resist  the  arguments  brought  against 
him,  was  rather  edifying  than  otherwise.  At  least  there 


280  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

were  no  theological  arguments  of  fire  and  sword,  no  rack  or 
stake  for  the  heretic  in  Gregory's  day.  The  pressure  of 
theological  judgment,  however,  became  too  strong  for  the 
Pope  to  resist,  preoccupied  as  he  was  with  other  matters, 
and  Berengarius  was  once  more  compelled  to  recant,  which 
he  did  cordially,  with  the  same  result  as  before. 

It  was  a  more  congenial  occupation  for  the  vigilant  head 
of  the  Church  to  watch  over  the  extension  of  the  faith  than 
to  promote  the  internal  discipline  of  the  fold  of  Christ  by 
prosecutions  for  heresy.  His  gaze  penetrated  the  mists  of 
the  far  north,  and  we  find  Gregory  forestalling  (as  indeed 
his  great  predecessor  the  first  Gregory  had  done  before  him) 
the  missionaries  of  our  own  day  in  the  expedient  of  train- 
ing young  natives  to  preach  the  faith  among  their  country- 
men, over  which  there  was  much  modern  rejoicing  when  it 
was  first  adopted  in  recent  days,  as  an  entirely  new  and 
altogether  wise  thing.  Gregory  the  Great  had  already 
practised  it  with  his  Anglo-Saxon  boys :  and  Gregory  VII. 
recommended  it  to  Olaf,  king  of  Norway,  to  whom  he  wrote 
that  he  would  fain  have  sent  a  sufficient  number  of  priests 
to  his  distant  country :  "  But  as  this  is  very  difficult  because 
of  the  great  distance  and  difference  of  language,  we  pray  you, 
as  we  have  also  asked  from  the  king  of  Denmark,  to  send 
to  our  apostolical  court  some  young  nobles  of  your  country 
in  order  that  being  nourished  with  care  in  divine  knowledge 
under  the  wings  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  they  may  carry 
back  to  you  the  counsels  of  the  Apostolical  See,  arriving 
among  you,  not  as  men  unknown,  but  as  brothers  —  and 
preaching  to  you  the  duties  of  Christianity,  not  as  strangers 
and  ignorant,  but  as  men  whose  language  is  yours,  and  who 
are  yet  trained  and  powerful  in  knowledge  and  morals." 
Thus,  while  the  toils  were  gathering  round  his  feet  at  home, 
and  the  most  ancient  centre  of  Christianity  was  ready  to 
cast  him  out  as  a  fugitive,  the  great  Pope  was  extending  the 
invisible  links  of  Christian  fealty  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 


m.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  281 

It  was  in  the  year  1080,  three  years  after  the  events  of 
Canossa,  that  the  next  step  was  taken  by  Gregory.  In  that 
long  interval  he  had  never  ceased  to  insist  upon  the  only 
lawful  mode  of  settling  the  quarrel,  i.e.,  the  assembly  in 
Germany  of  all  the  persons  most  concerned,  to  take  the 
whole  matter  into  solemn  consideration  and  come  to  a  per- 
manent conclusion  upon  grounds  more  solid  than  the  appeal 
to  arms  which  ravaged  the  empire,  and  which,  constantly 
fluctuating,  gave  the  temporary  victory  now  to  one  side, 
now  to  the  other.  The  age  was  far  from  being  ripe  for  any 
such  expedient  as  arbitration,  and  the  ordeal  of  arms  was 
its  most  natural  method :  yet  the  proposal  had  proceeded  in 
the  first  place  from  the  Teutonic  princes  themselves,  and  it 
was  entirely  in  accordance  with  German  laws  and  primitive 
procedure.  And  except  the  Pope,  or  some  other  great 
churchman,  there  was  no  possible  president  of  such  a  Diet, 
or  any  one  who  could  have  had  even  a  pretence  of  impar- 
tiality. He  was  the  only  man  who  could  maintain  the 
balance  and  see  justice  done,  even  in  theory:  for  the  awe 
of  his  presence  and  of  his  spiritual  powers  might  have 
restrained  these  fierce  princes  and  barons  and  made  some 
sort  of  reasonable  discussion  possible.  For  all  these  rea- 
sons, and  also  no  doubt  to  assert  practically  the  claim  he 
had  made  for  himself  and  his  successors  to  be  the  judges 
of  the  earth  and  settle  all  such  disputes  as  representatives 
of  God,  he  was  very  unwilling  to  give  up  the  project.  It 
had  come  to  be  evident,  however,  in  the  spring  of  1080 
when  Lent  began  and  the  usual  Council  of  the  Lateran 
assembled,  that  Henry  would  never  consent  to  this  Diet, 
the  very  reason  for  which  was  the  discussion  of  claims 
which  he  held  as  divine  and  infallible.  Rudolf,  his  rival, 
was,  or  professed  to  be,  as  anxious  for  it  as  the  Pope, 
though  he  never  had  taken  any  step  to  make  Gregory's 
journey  across  the  Alps  possible.  But  at  last  it  would  seem 
that  all  parties  gave  up  the  thought  of  any  such  means  of 


282  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

making  peace.  The  state  of  affairs  in  Germany  was  daily 
becoming  more  serious,  and  when  the  envoys  of  Rudolf, 
after  many  fruitless  visits  to  Rome,  appeared  at  last  with 
a  sort  of  ultimatum,  demanding  that  some  decisive  step 
should  be  taken  to  put  an  end  to  the  suspense,  there  was  no 
longer  any  possibility  of  further  delay.  Henry  also  sent 
ambassadors  on  the  same  occasion :  but  they  came  late,  and 
were  not  received.  The  Council  of  the  Lateran  met,  no 
doubt  with  many  searchings  of  heart  and  a  great  excitement 
pervading  the  assembly  where  matters  of  such  importance 
were  about  to  be  settled,  and  such  a  decision  as  had  never 
been  asked  from  any  Pope  before,  was  about  to  be  given 
from  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  to  a  half -believing,  half -rebel- 
lious world.  Whether  any  one  really  believed  that  a  ques- 
tion involving  the  succession  to  the  empire  could  be  solved 
in  this  way,  it  is  impossible  to  tell:  but  the  envoys  of 
Rudolf,  whose  arms  had  been  for  the  moment  victorious, 
and  who  had  just  driven  Henry  a  fugitive  before  him,  made 
their  appeal  to  the  Pope  with  a  vehemence  almost  tragic,  as 
to  one  whose  power  and  responsibility  in  the  matter  were 
beyond  doubt.  The  statement  of  their  case  before  the 
Council  was  as  follows : 

"  We  delegates  of  our  lord  the  King,  Rudolf,  and  of  the  princes, 
we  complain  before  God,  and  before  St.  Peter  to  you  our  father  and 
this  holy  Council,  that  Henry,  set  aside  by  your  Apostolic  authority 
from  the  kingdom,  has  notwithstanding  your  prohibition  invaded  the 
said  kingdom,  and  has  devastated  everything  around  by  sword  and  fire 
and  pillage ;  he  has  with  impious  cruelty,  driven  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops out  of  their  sees,  and  has  distributed  their  dignities  as  fiefs 
among  his  partisans.  Werner  of  holy  memory,  archbishop  of  Magde- 
burg, has  perished  by  his  tyranny ;  Aldebert,  bishop  of  Worms,  is  still 
held  in  prison  contrary  to  the  Apostolic  order;  many  thousands  of 
men  have  been  slaughtered  by  his  faction,  many  churches  pillaged, 
burned  and  destroyed.  The  assaults  of  Henry  upon  our  princes  be- 
cause they  withdrew  their  obedience  from  him  according  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Apostolic  See,  are  numberless.  And  the  assembly  which 
you  have  desired  to  call  together,  Holy  Father,  for  the  establishment 
of  the  truth  and  of  peace,  has  not  been  held,  solely  by  the  fault  of 
Henry  and  his  adherents.  For  these  reasons  we  supplicate  your  clem- 
ency in  our  own  name  and  that  of  the  Holy  Church  of  God  to  do  justice 
upon  the  sacrilegious  violator  of  the  Church." 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VH.  283 

It  will  be  remarked  that  the  whole  blame  of  the  struggle 
is  here  thrown  upon  the  Church :  —  as  in  the  remonstrance 
of  the  Saxon  bishops,  who  say  not  a  word  of  their  national 
grievances  against  Henry,  which  nevertheless  were  many 
and  great,  and  the  real  foundation  of  the  war  —  but  entirely 
attribute  it  to  the  action  of  Gregory  in  excommunicating 
and  authorising  them  to  withdraw  their  homage  from  the 
king.  Nobody,  we  think,  can  read  the  chaotic  and  perplex- 
ing history  of  the  time  without  perceiving  how  mere  a  pre- 
text this  was,  and  how  little  in  reality  the  grievances  of  the 
Church  had  to  do  with  the  internecine  struggle.  The  curi- 
ous thing  however,  is  that  Gregory,  either  in  policy  or 
self-deception,  accepts  the  whole  responsibility  and  is  will- 
ing to  be  considered  the  cause  and  maker  of  these  deadly 
wars,  as  if  the  struggle  had  been  one  between  the  Church 
and  the  King  alone.  A  sense  of  responsibility  was  evi- 
dently strong  in  his  mind  as  he  rose  from  his  presiding 
chair  on  this  great  occasion,  in  the  breathless  silence  that 
followed  the  complaint  and  appeal  of  Rudolf's  emissaries. 
Not  a  voice  in  defence  of  Henry  had  been  raised  in  the 
Council,  which,  as  many  voices  were  in  his  favour  in  pre- 
ceding assemblies,  shows  the  consciousness  of  the  conclave 
that  another  and  more  desperate  phase  of  the  quarrel  had 
been  reached. 

Gregory  himself  had  sat  silent  for  a  moment,  over- 
whelmed with  the  awe  of  the  great  crisis.  When  he  rose 
it  was  with  a  breaking  voice  and  tears  in  his  eyes :  and  the 
form  of  the  deliverance  was  as  remarkable  as  its  tenor. 
Gregory  addressed  —  not  the  Council :  but,  with  an  extraor- 
dinary outburst  of  emotion,  the  Apostle  in  whose  name 
he  pronounced  judgment  and  in  whose  chair  he  sat.  Noth- 
ing could  have  been  more  impressive  than  this  sudden  and 
evidently  spontaneous  change  from  the  speech  expected 
from  him  by  the  awed  and  excited  assembly,  to  the  per- 
sonal statement  and  explanation  given  forth  in  trembling 


284  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

accents  but  with  uplifted  head  and  eyes  raised  to  the 
unseen,  to  the  great  potentate  in  heavenly  places  whose 
representative  he  believed  himself  to  be.  However  vague 
might  be  the  image  of  the  apostle  in  other  eyes,  to  Gregory 
St.  Peter  was  his  living  captain,  the  superior  officer  of  the 
Church,  to  whom  his  second  in  command  had  to  render  an 
account  of  his  procedure  in  face  of  the  enemy.  The  amaze- 
ment of  that  great  assembly,  the  awe  suddenly  imposed 
even  on  the  great  body  of  priests,  too  familiar  perhaps  with 
holy  things  to  be  easily  impressed  —  much  more  on  the 
startled  laymen,  Kudolf's  envoys  and  their  attendants,  by 
this  abstract  address,  suddenly  rising  out  of  the  midst  of 
the  rapt  assembly  to  a  listener  unseen,  must  have  been 
extraordinary.  It  marked,  as  nothing  else  could  have  done, 
the  realisation  in  Gregory's  mind  of  a  situation  of  extraor- 
dinary importance,  such  an  emergency  as  since  the  Church 
came  into  being  had  seldom  or  never  occurred  in  her  history 
before.  He  stood  before  the  trembling  world,  himself  a 
solitary  man  shaken  to  the  depths,  calling  upon  his  great 
predecessor  to  remember  that  it  was  not  with  his  own  will 
that  he  had  ascended  that  throne  or  accepted  that  respon- 
sibility —  that  it  was  Peter,  or  rather  the  two  great  leaders 
of  the  Church  together,  Peter  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles, 
Paul  the  Doctor  and  instructor  of  the  nations,  who  had 
chosen  him,  not  he  who  had  thrust  himself  into  their  place. 
To  these  august  listeners  he  recounted  everything,  the 
whole  story  of  the  struggle,  the  sins  of  Henry,  his  submis- 
sion and  absolution,  his  renewed  rebellion,  always  against 
the  Church,  against  the  Apostles,  against  the  Ecclesiastical 
authority:  while  the  breathless  assembly  around,  left  out 
in  this  solemn  colloquy,  sat  eager,  drinking  in  every  word, 
overcome  by  the  wonder  of  the  situation,  the  strange  atti- 
tude of  the  shining  figure  in  the  midst,  who  was  not 
even  praying,  but  reporting,  explaining  every  detail  to  his 
unseen  general  above.  Henry  had  been  a  bad  king,  a  cruel 


in.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  285 

oppressor,  an  invader  of  every  right:  and  it  would  have 
been  the  best  policy  of  the  Churchman  to  put  forth  these 
effective  arguments  for  his  overthrow.  But  of  this  there  is 
not  a  word.  He  was  a  rebel  against  the  Church,  and  by 
the  hand  of  the  Church  it  was  just  and  right  that  he  should 
fall. 

One  cannot  but  feel  a  descent  from  this  high  and  vision- 
ary ground  in  the  diction  of  the  sentence  that  followed,  a 
sentence  not  now  heard  for  the  first  time,  and  which  per- 
haps no  one  there  felt,  tremendous  as  its  utterance  was,  to 
be  the  last  word  in  this  great  quarrel. 

"  Therefore  trusting  to  the  judgment  and  to  the  mercy  of  God,  and 
of  the  Holy  Mother  of  God,  and  armed  with  your  authority,  I  place 
under  excommunication  and  I  bind  with  the  chains  of  anathema,  Henry 
called  King,  and  all  his  fellow  sinners ;  and  on  the  part  of  Almighty 
God,  and  of  You,  shutting  him  out  henceforward  from  the  kingdoms 
of  Germany  and  of  Italy,  I  take  from  him  all  royal  power  and  dignity  ; 
I  forbid  any  Christian  to  obey  him  as  king ;  and  I  absolve  from  their 
sworn  promises  all  those  who  have  made,  or  may  make,  oaths  of  alle- 
giance to  him.  May  this  Henry  with  his  fellow  sinners  have  no  force 
in  fight  and  obtain  no  victory  in  life  !  " 

Having  with  like  solemnity  bestowed  upon  Eudolf  the 
kingdom  of  Germany  (Italy  is  not  named)  with  all  royal 
rights,  the  Pope  thus  concludes  his  address  to  the  spiritual 
Heads  in  heaven  of  the  Church  on  earth : 

"  Holy  Fathers  and  Lords  !  let  the  whole  world  now  know  and  un- 
derstand that  as  you  can  bind  and  loose  in  heaven,  you  can  also  upon 
earth  give  and  take  away  from  each  according  to  his  merits,  empires, 
kingdoms,  principalities,  duchies,  marquisates,  counties,  and  all  pos- 
sessions. You  have  often  already  taken  from  the  perverse  and  the 
unworthy,  patriarchal  sees,  primacies,  archbishoprics,  and  bishoprics, 
in  order  to  bestow  them  upon  religious  men.  If  you  thus  judge  in 
things  spiritual,  with  how  much  more  power  ought  you  not  to  do  so  in 
things  secular  !  And  if  you  judge  the  angels  who  are  the  masters  of 
the  proudest  princes,  what  may  you  not  do  with  the  princes,  their 
slaves  !  Let  the  kings  and  great  ones  of  the  earth  know  to-day  how 
great  you  are,  and  what  your  power  is ;  let  them  fear  to  neglect  the 
ordinances  of  the  Church  !  Accomplish  quickly  your  judgment  on 
Henry  so  that  to  the  eyes  of  all  it  may  be  apparent  that  it  falls  upon 
him  not  by  chance  but  by  your  power.  Yet  may  his  confusion  turn  to 
repentance,  that  his  soul  may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the  Lord." 


286  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Whether  the  ecstasy  of  his  own  rapt  and  abstract  com- 
munion with  the  unseen,  that  subtle  inspiration  of  an 
Invisible  too  clearly  conceived  for  human  weakness  to  sus- 
tain, had  gone  to  Gregory's  head  and  drawn  him  into  fuller 
expression  of  this  extraordinary  assertion  and  claim  beyond 
all  reason :  or  whether  the  long-determined  theory  of  his 
life  thus  found  complete  development  it  is  difficult  to  tell. 
These  assumptions  were,  indeed,  the  simple  and  practical 
outcome  of  claims  already  made  and  responsibilities 
assumed:  claims  which  had  been  already  put  feebly  into 
operation  by  other  Popes  before.  But  they  had  never 
before  been  put  into  words  so  living  or  so  solemn.  Greg- 
ory himself  had,  hitherto,  claimed  only  the  right  to  judge, 
to  arbitrate  at  the  head  of  a  National  Diet.  He  had  not 
himself,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  assumed  up  to  this  moment 
the  supposed  rights  of  Peter,  alone  and  uncontrolled.  He 
had  given  England  to  William,  but  only  on  the  warrant  of 
the  bond  of  Harold  solemnly  sworn  before  the  altar.  He 
had  made  legitimate  the  claims  already  established  by  con- 
quest of  Eobert  Guiscard  and  others  of  the  Norman  con- 
querors. But  the  standard  set  up  in  the  Lateran  Council 
of  1080  was  of  a  far  more  imperative  kind,  and  asserted 
finally  through  Peter  and  Paul,  his  holy  fathers  and  lords, 
an  authority  absolute  and  uncompromising  such  as  made 
the  brain  reel.  This  extraordinary  address  must  have  sent 
a  multitude,  many  of  them  no  doubt  ordinary  men  with  no 
lofty  ideal  like  his  own,  back  to  their  bishoprics  and 
charges,  swelling  with  a  sense  of  spiritual  grandeur  and 
power  such  as  no  promotion  could  give,  an  inspiration 
which  if  it  made  here  and  there  a  high  spirit  thrill  to  the 
necessities  of  a  great  position,  was  at  least  as  likely  to 
make  petty  tyrants  and  oppressors  of  meaner  men.  The 
only  saving  clause  in  a  charge  so  full  of  the  elements  of 
mischief,  is  that  to  the  majority  of  ordinary  minds  it  would 
contain  very  little  personal  meaning  at  all. 


in.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  289 

From  this  time  nothing  was  possible  but  war  to  the  death 
between  Gregory  and  Henry,  the  deposed  king,  who  was  as 
little  disposed  to  accept  his  deposition  as  any  anathema  was 
able  to  enforce  it.  We  have  already  remarked  on  various 
occasions,  and  it  is  a  dreadful  coming  down  from  the  height 
of  so  striking  a  scene,  and  so  many  great  words,  to  be 
obliged  to  repeat  it :  yet  it  is  very  evident  that  notwith- 
standing the  terrible  pictures  we  have  had  of  the  force  of 
these  anathemas,  they  made  very  little  difference  in  the  life 
of  the  world.  There  were  always  schismatic  or  rebellious 
priests  enough  to  carry  on,  in  defiance  of  the  Pope,  those 
visible  ceremonies  and  offices  of  religion  which  are  indis- 
pensable to  the  common  order  of  life.  There  were,  no 
doubt,  great  individual  sufferings  among  the  faithful,  but 
the  habits  of  ordinary  existence  could  only  have  been  inter- 
fered with  had  every  bishop  and  every  priest  been  loyal  to 
the  Pope,  which  was  far  from  being  the  case. 

It  was  at  the  conclusion  of  this  Council  that  Gregory  is 
said  to  have  sent  to  Rudolf  the  famous  imperial  crown  bear- 
ing the  inscription 

Petra  dedit  Petro,  Petrus  diadema  Rodolpho, 

of  which  Villemain  makes  the  shabby  remark  that,  "  After 
having  held  the  balance  as  uncertain,  and  denied  the  share 
he  had  in  the  election  of  Rudolf,  now  that  it  was  confirmed 
by  success  Gregory  VII.  claimed  it  for  himself  and  the 
Church."  —  a  conclusion  neither  in  consonance  with  the  facts 
nor  with  the  character  of  the  man. 

That  Henry  should  receive  this  decision  meekly  was  of 
course  impossible.  Once  more  he  attempted  to  make  re- 
prisals in  an  assembly  held  at  Brixen  in  the  following  June, 
when  by  means  of  the  small  number  of  thirty  bishops,  chiefly 
excommunicated  persons,  and,  of  course,  in  any  case  with- 
out any  right  to  judge  their  superior,  Gregory  himself  was 


290  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

once  more  deposed,  excommunicated,  and  cut  off  from  the 
communion  of  these  ecclesiastics  and  their  followings.  In 
the  sentence  given  by  this  paltry  company,  Gregory  is 
accused  of  following  the  heresy  of  Berengarius,  whose  re- 
cantation had  the  year  before  been  received  at  the  Lateran : 
and  also  of  being  a  necromancer  and  magician,  and  possessed 
by  an  evil  spirit.  These  exquisite  reasons  are  the  chief  of 
the  allegations  against  him,  and  the  principal  ground  upon 
which  his  deposition  was  justified.  Guibert  of  Eavenna, 
long  his  enemy,  and  one  of  the  excommunicated,  was  elected 
by  the  same  incompetent  tribunal  as  Pope  in  his  place, 
naturally  without  any  of  the  canonical  requirements  for 
such  an  election ;  though  we  are  told  that  Henry  laid  vio- 
lent hands  on  the  bishop  of  Ostia  whose  privilege  it  was  to 
officiate  at  the  consecration  of  the  Popes,  and  who  was  then 
in  foreign  parts  acting  as  legate,  in  order  to  give  some  show 
of  legality  to  the  election.  Guibert  however,  less  scrupu- 
lous than  the  former  intruder  Cadalous,  took  at  once  the 
title  of  Clement  III.  The  great  advantage  of  such  a  step, 
beside  the  sweetness  of  revenge,  no  doubt  was  that  it  prac- 
tically annulled  the  papal  interdict  so  far  as  the  knowledge 
of  the  vulgar  was  concerned:  for  so  long  as  there  were 
priests  to  officiate,  a  bishop  to  preside,  and  a  Pope  to  bless 
and  to  curse,  how  should  the  uninstructed  people  know  that 
their  country  was  under  any  fatal  ban?  To  make  such  a 
universal  excommunication  possible  the  whole  priesthood 
must  have  been  subject  and  faithful  to  the  one  sole  authority 
in  the  Church. 

Unfortunately  for  the  prestige  of  Gregory,  Henry  was 
much  more  successful  in  the  following  year  in  all  his  enter- 
prises, and  it  was  Rudolf,  the  friend  and  elected  of  the 
Pope,  and  not  his  adversary,  who  died  after  a  battle  which 
was  not  otherwise  decisive.  This  event  must  have  been  a 
great  blow  and  disappointment  as  well  as  an  immediate  and 
imminent  danger.  For  some  time,  however,  the  ordinary 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  291 

course  of  life  went  on  in  Borne,  and  Gregory,  by  means  of 
various  negotiations,  and  also  no  doubt  by  reason  of  his  own 
consciousness  of  the  pressing  need  for  a  champion  and  sup- 
porter, made  friends  again  with  Bobert  Guiscard,  exerting 
himself  to  settle  the  quarrels  between  him  and  his  neigh- 
bours, and  to  win  him  thus  by  good  offices  to  the  papal  side. 
To  complete  this  renewal  of  friendship  Gregory,  though 
ailing,  and  amid  all  these  tumults  beginning  to  feel  the 
weight  of  years,  made  a  journey  to  Benevento,  which  be- 
longed to  the  Holy  See,  and  there  met  his  former  penitent 
and  adversary,  the  brave  and  wily  Norman.  The  interview 
between  them  took  place  in  sight  of  a  great  crowd  of  the 
followers  of  both  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  whole  region, 
assembled  in  mingled  curiosity  and  reverence,  to  see  so  great 
a  scene.  The  Norman,  relieved  of  the  excommunications 
under  which  he  had  lain  for  past  offences,  and  endowed 
with  the  Pope's  approval  and  blessing,  swore  fealty  and 
obedience  to  Gregory,  promising  henceforward  to  be  the 
champion  of  Holy  Church,  protecting  her  property  and 
her  servants,  keeping  her  counsel  and  acknowledging  her 
authority. 

"  From  this  hour  and  for  the  future  I  will  be  faithful  to 
the  Holy  Boman  Church,  and  to  the  Apostolic  See,  and  to 
you,  my  lord  Gregory,  the  universal  Pope.  I  will  be  your 
defender,  and  that  of  the  Eoman  Church,  aiding  you  accord- 
ing to  my  power  to  maintain,  to  occupy,  and  to  defend  the 
domains  of  St.  Peter  and  his  possessions,  against  all  comers, 
reserving  only  the  March  of  Fermo,  of  Salerno,  and  of 
Amalfi,  concerning  which  no  definite  arrangement  has  yet 
been  made." 

These  last,  and  especially  the  town  of  Salerno,  one  of  the 
cities  la  piu  bella  e  piu  deliziosa  of  Italy,  says  old  Muratori, 
had  been  recently  taken  by  Guiscard  from  their  Prince  Gi- 
solf o,  a  protigt  and  friend  of  the  Pope,  who  excepts  them  in 
the  same  cautious  manner  from  the  sanction  given  to  Bob- 


292  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ert's  other  conquests.     Gregory's  act  of  investiture  is  alto- 
gether a  very  cautious  document : 

I  Gregory,  Pope,  invest  you  Duke  Robert,  with  all  the  lands  given 
you  by  my  predecessors  of  holy  memory,  Nicolas  and  Alexander.  As 
for  the  lands  of  Salerno,  Amalfi  and  a  portion  of  the  March  of  Fermo, 
held  by  you  unjustly,  I  suffer  it  patiently  for  the  present,  having  con- 
fidence in  God  and  in  your  honesty,  and  that  you  will  conduct  yourself 
in  future  for  the  honour  of  God  and  St.  Peter  in  such  a  manner  as 
becomes  you,  and  as  I  may  tolerate,  without  risking  your  soul  or  mine. 

It  is  not  likely  that  Gregory  hoped  so  much  from  Guis- 
card's  probity  as  that  he  would  give  up  that  citta  deliziosa, 
won  by  his  bow  and  his  spear.  Nor  was  he  then  aware  how 
his  own  name  and  all  its  associations  would  remain  in  Sa- 
lerno, its  chief  distinction  throughout  all  the  ages  to  come. 

The  life  of  Gregory  had  never  been  one  of  peace  or  tran- 
quillity. He  had  been  a  fighting  man  all  his  days,  but  dur- 
ing a  great  part  of  them  a  successful  one  :  the  years  which 
remained  to  him,  however,  were  one  long  course  of  agita- 
tions, of  turmoil,  and  of  revolution.  In  1081  Henry,  scarcely 
successful  by  arms,  but  confident  in  the  great  discourage- 
ment of  the  rival  party  through  the  death  of  Rudolf,  crossed 
the  Alps  again,  and  after  defeating  Matilda,  ravaging  her 
duchy  and  driving  her  to  the  shelter  of  Canossa,  marched 
upon  Rome.  Guibert  of  Ravenna,  the  Anti-Pope,  accompa- 
nied him  with  many  bishops  and  priests  of  his  party.  On 
his  first  appearance  before  Rome,  the  energy  of  Gregory, 
and  his  expectation  of  some  such  event,  had  for  once  in- 
spired the  city  to  resistance,  so  that  the  royal  army  got  no 
further  than  the  "  fields  of  Nero,"  outside  the  walls  of  the 
Leonine  city  to  the  north  of  St.  Peter's,  by  which  side  they 
had  approached  Rome.  Henry  had  himself  crowned  em- 
peror by  his  anti-pope  in  his  tent,  an  act  performed  by  the 
advice  of  his  schismatic  bishops,  and  to  the  great  wonder, 
excitement,  and  interest  of  the  surrounding  people,  over- 
awed by  that  great  title  which  he  had  not  as  yet  ventured 
to  assume.  This  futile  coronation  was  indeed  an  act  with 


m.]  THE  POPE  GREGORY  VII.  293 

which  he  amused  himself  periodically  during  the  following 
years  from  time  to  time.  But  the  heats  of  summer  and  the 
fever  of  Eome  soon  drove  the  invaders  back.  In  1082 
Henry  returned  to  the  attack,  but  still  in  vain.  In  1083  he 
was  more  successful,  and  seized  that  portion  of  Rome  called 
the  Leonine  city,  which  included  St.  Peter's  and  the  tombs 
of  the  Apostles,  the  great  shrine  which  gave  sanctity  to  the 
whole.  The  Pope,  up  to  this  time  free,  though  continually 
threatened  by  his  enemies,  and  still  carrying  on  as  best  he 
could  the  universal  affairs  of  the  Church,  was  now  forced  to 
retire  to  St.  Angelo.  He  was  at  this  moment  without  de- 
fender or  champion  on  any  side.  The  brave  Matilda,  ever 
faithful,  was  shut  up  in  impregnable  Canossa.  Guiscard, 
after  having  secured  all  that  he  wanted  from  Gregory,  had 
gone  off  upon  his  own  concerns,  and  was  now  struggling  to 
make  for  himself  a  footing  in  Greece,  indifferent  to  the 
Pope's  danger.  The  Romans,  after  the  brief  interval  of  in- 
spiration which  gave  them  courage  to  make  a  stand  for  the 
Pope  and  the  integrity  of  their  city,  had  fallen  back  into 
their  usual  weakness,  dazzled  by  Henry's  title  of  Emperor, 
and  cowed  by  the  presence  of  his  Germans  at  their  gates. 
They  had  never  had  any  spirit  of  resistance,  and  it  was 
scarcely  to  be  expected  of  a  corrupt  and  fickle  population, 
accustomed  for  ages  to  be  the  toys  of  circumstance,  that  they 
should  begin  a  nobler  career  now.  And  there  the  Pope 
remained,  shut  up  in  that  lonely  stronghold,  overlooking  the 
noisy  and  busy  streets  which  overflowed  with  foreign  sol- 
diers and  the  noise  of  arms,  while  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Peter  close  by,  Guibert  the  mock  Pope  assembled  a  mock 
council  to  absolve  the  new  Emperor  from  all  the  anathemas 
that  had  followed  one  another  upon  his  head. 

There  was  much  discussion  and  debate  in  that  strange 
assembly,  in  which  every  second  man  at  least  must  have  had 
in  his  secret  heart  a  sense  of  sacrilege,  over  this  subject. 
They  did  not  apparently  deny  the  legal  weight  of  these 


294  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

anathemas,  which,  they  recognised  as  the  root  and  origin  of 
all  the  misfortunes  that  had  followed ;  but  they  maintained 
a  feeble  contention  that  the  proceedings  of  Gregory  had 
been  irregular,  seeing  that  Henry  had  never  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  defending  himself.  Another  of  the  pretensions 
attributed  to  the  Roman  Church  by  her  enemies,  and  this 
time  with  truth,  as  it  has  indeed  become  part  of  her  code  — 
was,  as  appears,  set  up  on  this  occasion  for  the  first  time, 
and  by  the  schismatics.  Gregory  had  forbidden  the  people 
to  accept  the  sacraments  from  the  hands  of  vicious  or  simo- 
niacal  priests.  Guibert,  called  Clement  III.,  and  his  ficti- 
tious council  declared  with  many  learned  quotations  that 
the  sacraments  in  themselves  were  all  in  all,  and  the  admin- 
istrators nothing ;  and  that  though  given  by  a  drunkard,  an 
adulterer,  or  a  murderer,  the  rites  of  the  Church  were  equally 
effectual.  It  was  however  still  more  strange  that  in  this  as- 
sembly, made  up  of  schismatics,  many  of  them  guilty  of  these 
very  practices,  a  timid  remonstrance  should  have  been  made 
against  the  very  sins  which  had  separated  them  from  the 
rest  of  the  Church  and  which  Gregory  had  spent  his  life  in 
combating.  The  Pope  had  not  been  successful  either  in 
abolishing  simony  or  in  maintaining  celibacy  and  continence 
among  the  clergy,  but  he  had  roused  a  universal  public  opin- 
ion, a  sentiment  stronger  than  himself,  which  found  a  place 
even  in  the  mind  of  his  antagonist  and  rival  in  arms. 

Thus  the  usurper  timidly  attacked  with  arguments  either 
insignificant  or  morally  dangerous  the  acts  of  the  Pope  — 
yet  timidly  echoed  his  doctrine  :  with  the  air  throughout  all 
of  a  pretender  alarmed  by  the  mere  vicinity  of  an  unfortu- 
nate but  rightful  monarch.  Guibert  had  been  bold  enough 
before ;  he  had  the  air  now  of  a  furtive  intruder  trembling 
lest  in  every  chance  sound  he  might  hear  the  step  of  the  true 
master  returning  to  his  desecrated  house. 

The  next  event  in  this  curious  struggle  is  more  extraor- 
dinary still.  Henry  himself,  it  is  evident,  must  have  been 


m.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  295 

struck  with  the  feeble  character  of  this  unauthorised  assem- 
bly, notwithstanding  that  the  new  Pope  was  of  his  own 
making  and  the  council  held  under  his  auspices ;  or  perhaps 
he  hoped  to  gain  something  by  an  appearance  of  candour 
and  impartiality  though  so  late  in  the  day.  At  all  events  he 
proposed,  immediately  after  the  close  of  the  fictitious  coun- 
cil, to  the  citizens  and  officials  who  still  held  the  other  por- 
tions of  the  city,  in  the  name  of  Gregory  —  to  withdraw  his 
troops,  to  leave  all  roads  to  Rome  free,  and  to  submit  his 
cause  to  another  council  presided  over  by  Gregory  and  to 
which,  as  in  ordinary  cases,  all  the  higher  ranks  of  the 
clergy  should  be  invited.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a 
more  extraordinary  contradiction  of  all  that  had  gone  before. 
The  proposal,  however,  strange  as  it  seems,  was  accepted 
and  carried  out.  In  November,  1083,  this  assembly  was 
called  together.  Henry  withdrew  with  his  army  towards 
Lombardy,  the  peaceful  roads  were  all  reopened,  and  bishops 
and  abbots  from  all  parts  of  Christendom  hastened,  no 
doubt  trembling,  yet  excited,  to  Rome.  Henry,  notwith- 
standing his  liberality  of  kind  offers,  exercised  a  considerable 
supervision  over  these  travellers,  for  we  hear  that  he  stopped 
the  deputies  whom  the  German  princes  had  sent  to  repre- 
sent them,  and  also  many  distinguished  prelates,  two  of 
whom  had  been  specially  attached  to  his  mother  Agnes, 
along  with  one  of  the  legates  of  the  Pope.  The  attempt  to 
pack  the  assembly,  or  at  least  to  weed  it  of  its  most  remark- 
able members  in  this  way  was  not,  however,  successful,  and 
a  large  number  of  ecclesiastics  were  got  together  notwith- 
standing all  the  perils  of  the  journey. 

The  meeting  was  a  melancholy  one,  overshadowed  by  the 
hopelessness  of  a  position  in  which  all  the  right  was  on  one 
side  and  all  the  power  on  the  other.  After  three  days' 
deliberation,  which  came  to  nothing,  the  Pope  addressed  — 
it  was  for  the  last  time  in  Rome  —  his  faithful  counsellors. 
"He  spoke  with  the  tongue  of  an  angel  rather  than  of  a 


296  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

man/7  bidding  them  to  be  firm  and  patient,  to  hold  fast  to 
the  faith,  and  to  quit  themselves  like  men,  however  dark 
might  be  the  days  on  which  they  had  fallen.  The  entire 
convocation  broke  forth  into  tears  as  the  old  man  con- 
cluded. 

But  Gregory  would  not  be  moved  to  any  clemency  towards 
his  persecutor.  He  yielded  so  far  as  not  to  repeat  his 
anathema  against  him,  excommunicating  only  those  who  by 
force  or  stratagem  had  turned  back  and  detained  any  who 
were  on  their  way  to  the  Council.  But  he  would  not  con- 
sent to  crown  Henry  as  emperor,  which  —  notwithstanding 
his  previous  coronation  in  his  tent  by  Guibert,  and  a  still 
earlier  one,  it  is  said,  at  Brixen  immediately  after  the 
appointment  of  the  anti-pope  —  was  what  the  rebellious 
monarch  still  desired ;  nor  would  he  yield  to  the  apparent 
compulsion  of  circumstances  and  make  peace,  without  re- 
pentance on  the  part  of  Henry.  No  circumstances  could 
coerce  such  a  man.  The  fruitless  council  lasted  but  three 
days,  and  separated  without  making  any  change  in  the 
situation.  The  Romans,  roused  again  perhaps  by  the  brief 
snatch  of  freedom  they  had  thus  seemed  to  have,  rose 
against  Henry's  garrison  and  regained  possession  of  the 
Leonine  city  which  he  had  held :  and  thus  every  particular 
of  the  struggle  was  begun  and  repeated  over  again. 

This  extraordinary  attempt,  after  all  that  had  happened 
—  after  the  council  in  which  Henry  had  deposed  Gregory, 
the  council  in  St.  Peter's  itself,  held  by  the  anti-pope,  and 
all  the  abuse  he  had  poured  upon  "  the  monk  Hildebrand," 
as  he  had  again  and  again  styled  the  Pope — by  permitting 
an  assembly  in  which  the  insulted  pontiff  should  be  restored 
to  all  his  authority  and  honours,  to  move  Gregory  to  accept 
and  crown  him,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  his- 
tory. But  the  attempt  was  the  last  he  ever  made,  as  it  was 
the  most  futile.  After  the  one  flash  of  energy  with  which 
Rome  renewed  the  struggle,  and  another  period  of  renewed 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  297 

attacks  and  withdrawals,  Henry  became  master  of  the  city, 
though  never  of  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo  where  Gregory 
sat  indomitable,  relaxing  not  a  jot  of  his  determination 
and  strong  as  ever  in  his  refusal  to  withdraw,  unless  after 
full  repentance,  his  curse  from  Henry.  Various  castles  and 
fortified  places  continued  to  be  held  in  the  name  of  the 
Pope,  both  within  and  without  the  walls  of  the  city :  which 
fact  throws  a  curious  light  upon  its  existing  aspect :  but 
these  remnants  of  defence  had  little  power  to  restrain  the 
conqueror  and  his  great  army. 

And  then  again  Eome  saw  one  of  those  sights  which  from 
age  to  age  had  become  familiar  to  her,  the  triumph  of  arms 
and  overwhelming  force  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  im- 
prisoned ruler  of  the  city.  The  Lateran  Palace,  so  long 
deserted,  awoke  to  receive  a  royal  guest.  The  sober  courts 
of  the  papal  house  blazed  with  splendid  costumes  and 
resounded  with  all  the  tumult  of  rejoicing  and  triumph. 
The  first  of  the  great  ceremonies  was  the  coronation  of  the 
Archbishop  Guibert  as  Clement  III.,  which  took  place  in 
Passion  Week  in  the  year  1084.  Four  months  before  Greg- 
ory had  descended  from  his  stronghold  to  hold  the  council 
in  which  Henry  had  still  hoped  to  persuade  or  force  him  to 
complaisance,  flinging  Guibert  lightly  away ;  but  the  king's 
hopes  had  failed  and  Guibert  was  again  the  temporary 
symbol  of  that  spiritual  power  without  which  he  could 
not  maintain  himself.  On  Easter  Sunday  following,  three 
great  processions  again  streamed  over  the  bridge  of  St. 
Angelo  under  the  eyes,  it  may  be,  of  Gregory  high  on  the 
battlements  of  his  fortress,  or  at  least  penetrating  to  his 
seclusion  with  the  shouts  and  cheers  that  marked  their  prog- 
ress—  the  procession  of  the  false  Pope,  that  of  the  king, 
that  of  Bertha  the  king's  wife,  whom  it  had  required  all  the 
efforts  of  Gregory  and  his  faithful  bishops  to  preserve  from 
a  cruel  divorce :  she  who  had  set  her  maids  with  baton  and 
staff  to  beat  the  life  half  out  of  that  false  spouse  and  caitiff 


298  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

knight  in  his  attempt  to  betray  her.  The  world  had  tri- 
umphed over  the  Church,  the  powers  of  darkness  over  those 
of  light,  a  false  and  treacherous  despot,  whose  word  even 
his  own  followers  held  as  nothing,  over  the  steadfast,  pure, 
and  high-minded  priest,  who,  whatever  we  may  think  of 
his  motives  —  and  no  judgment  upon  Gregory  can  ever  be 
unanimous  —  had  devoted  his  life  to  one  high  purpose  and 
held  by  it  through  triumph  and  humiliation,  unmoved  and 
immovable.  Gregory  was  as  certain  of  his  great  position 
now,  the  Vicar  of  Christ  commissioned  to  bind  and  to  loose, 
to  judge  with  impartiality  and  justice  all  men's  claims,  to 
hold  the  balance  of  right  and  wrong  all  over  the  world,  as 
he  watched  the  gay  processions  pass,  and  heard  the  heralds 
sounding  their  trumpets  and  the  anti-pope,  the  creature  of 
Henry's  will,  passing  by  to  give  his  master  (for  the  third 
time)  the  much-longed-for  imperial  crown,  as  when  he  him- 
self stood  master  within  the  battlements  of  Canossa  and  raised 
that  suppliant  king  to  the  possibilities  of  empire  from  his  feet. 
It  is  a  curious  detail  adding  a  touch  to  the  irony  which 
mingles  with  so  many  human  triumphs  and  downfalls,  that 
the  actual  imperial  crown  seems  at  one  time  at  least  to  have 
been  in  Gregory's  keeping.  During  the  abortive  council,  for 
which,  for  three  days  he  had  returned  to  the  Lateran,  he 
offered,  though  he  refused  to  place  it  on  his  head,  to  give  it 
up  to  Henry's  hands,  letting  it  down  with  a  cord  from  a 
window  of  St.  Angelo.  This  offer,  which  could  scarcely 
be  other  than  ironical,  seems  to  have  been  refused;  but 
whether  Gregory  retained  it  in  St.  Angelo,  or  left  it  to  be 
found  in  the  Lateran  treasury  by  the  returning  king,  there 
is  no  information.  If  it  was  a  fictitious  crown  which  was 
placed  upon  Henry's  head  by  the  fictitious  Pope,  the  curious 
travesty  would  be  complete.  And  history  does  not  say 
even  why  the  ceremony  performed  before  by  the  same  hands 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  should  have  dropped  out  of 
recollection  as  a  thing  that  had  not  been. 


m.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  299 

During  all  this  time  nothing  had  been  heard  of  Robert 
Guiscard  who  had  so  solemnly  taken  upon  him  the  office  of 
champion  of  the  Holy  See  and  knight  of  St.  Peter.  He  had 
been  about  his  own  business,  pursuing  his  conquests,  eager 
to  carve  out  new  kingdoms  for  himself  and  his  sons :  but  at 
last  the  Pope's  appeals  became  too  strong  to  be  resisted. 
Henry,  whose  armies  had  doubtless  not  improved  in  force 
during  the  desultory  warfare  which  must  have  affected 
more  or  less  the  consciences  of  many,  and  the  hot  summers, 
unwholesome  for  northerners,  did  not  await  the  coming  of 
this  new  and  formidable  foe.  Matilda's  Tuscans  were  more 
easily  overcome  than  Guiscard' s  veterans  of  northern  race. 
He  called  in  his  men  from  all  the  petty  sieges  which  were 
wearing  them  out,  and  from  that  wall  which  he  had  forced 
the  Romans  with  their  own  pitiful  hands  to  build  as  a 
base  of  attacks  against  Sjb.  Angelo,  and  withdrew  in  haste, 
leaving  the  terrified  citizens  whom  he  had  won  over  to  his 
party,  as  little  apt  to  arms  as  their  forefathers  had  been, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  half-ruined  city  —  the  strong  positions 
in  which  were  still  held  by  the  friends  of  the  Pope  —  to  do 
what  they  could  against  the  most  dreaded  troops  of  Chris- 
tendom. The  catastrophe  was  certain  before  it  occurred. 
The  resistance  of  the  Romans  to  Robert  Guiscard  was  little 
more  than  nominal,  only  enough  to  inflame  the  Normans  and 
give  the  dreadful  freedom  of  besiegers  to  their  armed  hordes. 
They  delivered  the  Pontiff,  but  sacked  the  town  which  lay 
helpless  in  its  ruins  at  their  feet ;  not  even  the  churches 
were  spared,  nor  their  right  of  sanctuary  acknowledged  as 
six  hundred  years  before  Attila  had  acknowledged  it.  And 
all  the  fault  of  the  Pope,  as  who  could  wonder  if  the 
sufferers  cried?  It  was  he  who  had  brought  these  savages 
upon  them,  as  it  was  he  who  had  exposed  them  before  to  the 
hostility  of  Henry.  Gregory  had  scarcely  come  forth  from  his 
citadel  and  returned  to  his  palace  when  Rome  was  filled 
with  scenes  of  blood  and  carnage,  such  as  recalled  the 


300  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

invasions  of  Huns  and  Vandals.  The  flames  of  the  burning 
city  lighted  up  the  skies  as  he  came  forth  in  sorrow, 
delivered  from  his  bondage,  but  a  sad  and  burdened  man. 
The  chroniclers  tell  us  that  he  flung  himself  at  the  feet  of 
Guiscard  to  beg  him  to  spare  the  city,  crying  out  that  he 
was  Pope  for  edification  and  not  for  ruin.  And  though  his 
prayer  was  to  some  extent  granted,  there  is  little  doubt  that 
here  at  the  last  the  heart  of  Gregory  and  his  courage  were 
broken,  and  that  though  his  resolution  was  never  shaken, 
his  strength  could  bear  little  more.  This  was  the  greatest, 
as  it  was  the  most  uncalled  for,  misfortune  of  his  life. 

He  held  a  strange  council  in  desolate  Koine  in  the  few 
days  that  followed,  in  which  he  repeated  his  anathema 
against  Henry,  Guibert,  and  all  the  clergy  who  were  living 
in  rebellion  or  in  sin.  But  it  would  seem  that  even  at  such 
a  moment  the  council  was  not  unanimous  and  that  the  spirit 
of  his  followers  was  broken  and  cowed,  and  few  could  follow 
him  in  the  steadfastness  of  his  own  unchangeable  mind. 
And  when  this  tremulous  and  disturbed  assembly  was  over, 
held  in  such  extraordinary  circumstances,  fierce  Normans, 
wild  Saracens  forming  the  guard  of  the  Pontiff,  fire  and 
ruin,  and  the  shrieks  of  victims  still  disturbing  the  once 
peaceful  air  —  Gregory,  sick  at  heart,  turned  his  back  upon 
the  beloved  city  which  he  had  laboured  so  hard  to  make 
once  more  mistress  of  the  world.  Perhaps  he  was  not  aware 
that  he  left  Koine  for  ever ;  but  the  conditions  of  that  last 
restoration  had  broken  his  heart.  He  to  bring  bloodshed 
and  rapine !  he  who  was  Pope  to  build  up  and  not  to 
destroy !  It  was  more  than  the  man  who  had  borne  all 
things  else  could  endure.  No  doubt  it  was  a  crowning 
triumph  for  Guiscard  to  lead  away  with  him  the  rescued 
Pontiff,  and  pose  before  all  the  world  as  Gregory's  deliverer. 
The  journey  itself,  however,  was  not  without  perils.  The 
Campagna  and  all  the  wilder  country  beyond,  about  the 
Pontine  marshes,  was  full  of  freebooting  bands,  Henry's 


HI.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  301 

partisans,  or  calling  themselves  so,  who  harassed  the  march 
with  guerilla  attacks.  In  one  such  flying  combat  a  monk  of 
Gregory's  own  retinue  was  killed,  and  the  Pope  had  to  ride 
like  the  men-at-arms,  now  starting  at  daybreak,  now  travelling 
deep  into  the  night.  At  Monte  Cassino,  in  the  great  convent 
where  his  friend  Desiderius,  who  was  to  be  his  successor 
reigned,  there  was  a  welcome  pause,  and  he  had  time  to 
refresh  himself  among  his  old  friends,  the  true  brethren  and 
companions  of  his  soul.  The  legends  of  the  monks  —  or 
was  it  the  pity  of  the  ages  beginning  already  to  awaken  and 
rising  to  a  great  height  of  human  compunction  by  the  time 
the  early  historians  began  to  write  his  story  ?  —  accord  to 
him  here  that  compensation  of  divine  acknowledgment 
which  the  heart  recognises  as  the  only  healing  for  such 
wounds.  Some  one  among  the  monks  of  Monte  Cassino  saw 
a  dove  hovering  over  his  head  as  he  said  mass.  Perhaps 
this  was  merely  a  confusion  with  the  legend  of  Gregory  the 
Great,  his  predecessor,  to  whom  that  attribute  belongs ; 
perhaps  some  gentle  brother  whose  heart  ached  with 
sympathy  for  the  suffering  Pope  had  glamour  in  his  eyes 
and  saw. 

Gregory  continued  his  journey,  drawn  along  in  the  army 
of  Robert  Guiscard  as  in  a  chariot,  which  began  now  to  be, 
as  he  reached  the  south  Italian  shores,  a  chariot  of  triumph. 
All  the  towns  and  villages  on  the  -way  came  out  to  greet  the 
Pope,  to  ask  his  blessing.  The  bishop  of  Salerno,  with  his 
clergy,  came  forth  in  solemn  procession  with  shining  robes 
and  sacred  standards  to  meet  him.  Neither  Pope  nor  prince 
could  have  found  a  more  exquisite  retreat  from  the  troubles 
of  an  evil  world.  The  beautiful  little  city,  half  Saracenic, 
in  all  the  glory  of  its  cathedral  still  new  and  white  and 
blooming  with  colour  like  a  flower,  sat  on  the  edge  of  that 
loveliest  coast,  the  sea  like  sapphire  surging  up  in  many 
lines  of  foam,  the  waves  clapping  their  hands  as  in  the 
Psalms,  and  above,  the  olive-mantled  hills  rising  soft 


302  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

towards  the  bluest  sky,  with  on  every  point  a  white  village, 
a  little  church  tower,  the  convent  walls  shining  in  the  sun. 
It  is  still  a  region  as  near  Paradise  as  human  imagination 
can  grasp,  more  fair  than  any  scene  we  know.  One  won- 
ders if  the  Pope's  heart  had  sufficient  spring  left  in  it  to 
take  some  faint  delight  in  that  wonderful  conjunction  of 
earth  and  sea"  and  sky.  But  such  delights  were  not  much 
thought  of  in  his  day,  and  it  is  very  possible  he  might  have 
felt  it  something  like  a  sin  to  suffer  his  heart  to  go  forth  in 
any  such  carnal  pleasure. 

But  at  least  something  of  his  old  energy  came  back  when 
he  was  settled  in  this  wonderful  place  of  exile.  He  sent 
out  his  legates  to  the  world,  charged  with  letters  to  the 
faithful  everywhere,  to  explain  the  position  of  affairs  and 
to  assert,  as  if  now  with  his  last  breath,  that  it  was  because 
of  his  determination  to  purify  the  Church  that  all  these  con- 
spiracies had  risen  against  him  —  which  was  indeed,  not- 
withstanding all  the  developments  taken  by  the  question, 
the  absolute  truth.  For  it  was  Gregory's  strongly  conceived 
and  faithfully  held  resolution  to  cleanse  the  Church  from 
simony,  to  have  its  ministers  and  officers  chosen  for  their 
worth  and  virtue,  and  power  to  guide  and  influence  their 
flocks  for  good,  and  not  because  they  had  wealth  to  pay  for 
their  dignity  and  to  maintain  it,  which  was  the  beginning 
of  the  conflict.  Henry  who  refused  obedience  and  made 
a  traffic  of  the  holiest  offices,  and  those  degenerate  and 
rebellious  priests  who  continued  to  buy  themselves  into 
rich  bishoprics  and  abbacies  in  defiance  of  every  ecclesi- 
astical law  and  penalty,  were  the  original  offenders,  and 
ought  before  posterity  at  least  to  bear  the  brunt. 

It  is  perhaps  indiscreet  to  speak  of  an  event  largely 
affecting  modern  life  in  such  words,  but  there  is  a  whim- 
sical resemblance  which  is  apt  to  call  forth  a  smile  between 
the  action  of  a  large  portion  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  fifty 
years  ago,  and  the  life  struggle  of  Gregory.  In  the  former 


HI.]  THE   POPE   GREGORY  VII.  303 

case  it  was  the  putting  in  of  ministers  to  ecclesiastical 
benefices  by  lay  authority,  however  veiled  by  supposed  pop- 
ular assent,  which  was  believed  to  be  an  infringement  of 
the  divine  rights  of  the  Church,  and  of  the  headship  of 
Christ,  by  a  religious  body  perhaps  more  scornful  and  con- 
demnatory than  any  other  of  everything  connected  with  a 
Pope.  It  was  not  supposed  in  Scotland  that  the  humble 
candidates  for  poor  Scotch  livings  bought  their  advance- 
ment ;  but  the  principle  was  the  same. 

In  the  case  of  Gregory  the  positions  thus  bought  and 
sold  were  of  very  great  secular  importance,  carrying  with 
them  much  wealth,  power,  and  outward  importance,  which 
was  not  the  case  in  the  other ;  but  in  neither  case  were  the 
candidates  chosen  canonically  or  for  their  suitableness  to 
the  charge,  but  from  extraneous  motives  and  in  spite  of  the 
decisions  of  the  Church.  This  was  to  destroy  the  headship 
of  Peter,  the  authority  of  his  representative,  the  rights  of 
the  sacred  Spouse  of  Christ.  Both  claims  were  perfectly 
honest  and  true.  But  Gregory,  as  in  opposition  to  a  far 
greater  grievance,  and  one  which  overspread  all  Christen- 
dom, was  by  far  the  more  distinguished  confessor,  as  he 
was  the  greater  martyr  of  the  Holy  Cause. 

For  this  was  undoubtedly  the  first  cause  of  all  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  Pontiff,  the  insults  showered  upon  him,  the 
wrongs  he  had  to  bear,  the  exile  in  which  he  died.  The 
question  has  been  settled  against  him,  we  believe,  in  every 
country,  even  the  most  deeply  Christian.  Scotland  indeed 
has  prevailed  in  having  her  own  way,  but  that  is  because 
she  has  no  important  benefices,  involving  secular  rank  and 
privilege.  ISTo  voice  in  England  has  ever  been  raised  in 
defence  of  simony,  but  the  conge  (Velire  would  have  been  as 
great  an  offence  to  Pope  Gregory,  and  as  much  of  a  sin  to 
Dr.  Chalmers,  as  the  purchase  of  an  archbishopric  in  one 
case,  or  the  placing  of  an  unpopular  preacher  in  another. 
The  Pope's  claim  of  authority  over  both  Church  and  world, 


304  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERX   ROME.          [CHAP. 

though  originally  and  fundamentally  based  upon  his  rights 
as  the  successor  of  Peter,  developed  out  of  this  as  the  fruit 
out  of  the  flower.  Prom  a  religious  point  of  view,  and  if 
we  could  secure  that  all  Popes,  candidates  for  ecclesiastical 
offices,  and  electors  to  the  same,  should  be  wise  and  good 
men,  the  position  would  be  unassailable ;  but  as  it  is  not  so, 
the  question  seems  scarcely  worth  risking  a  man's  living 
for,  much  less  his  life.  But  perhaps  no  man  since,  if  it 
were  not  his  successors  in  the  popedom,  had  such  strenuous 
reasons  to  spend  his  life  for  it  as  Gregory,  as  none  has  ever 
had  a  severer  struggle. 

This  smaller  question,  however,  though  it  is  the  funda- 
mental one,  has  been  almost  forgotten  in  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  —  the  sacred  and  the 
secular  powers  —  which  developed  out  of  it.  The  claim  to 
decide  not  only  who  was  to  be  archbishop  but  who  was  to 
be  king,  rose  into  an  importance  which  dwarfed  every 
other.  This  was  not  originated  by  Gregory,  but  it  was  by 
his  means  that  it  became  the  great  question  of  the  age,  and 
rent  the  world  in  twain.  The  two  great  institutions  of  the 
Papacy  and  the  Empire  had  been  or  seemed  to  be  an  ideal 
method  of  governing  the  world,  the  one  at  the  head  of  all 
spiritual  concerns,  the  other  commanding  every  secular 
pOAver  and  all  the  progress  of  Christendom.  Circumstances 
indeed,  and  the  growth  of  independence  and  power  in  other 
nations,  had  circumscribed  the  sphere  of  the  Empire,  while 
the  Papacy  had  grown  in  influence  by  the  same  means. 
But  still  the  Empire  was  the  head  of  the  Christian  world 
of  nations,  as  the  Pope  was  the  head  of  those  spiritual 
princedoms  which  had  developed  into  so  much  importance. 
When  the  interests  were  so  curiously  mingled,  it  was  certain 
that  a  collision  must  occur  one  time  or  another.  There 
had  been  frequent  jars,  in  days  when  the  power  of  the  Em- 
pire was  too  great  for  anything  but  a  momentary  resistance 
on  the  part  of  the  Pope.  But  when  the  decisive  moment 


in.]  THE  POPE   GREGORY  VII.  305 

came  and  the  struggle  became  inevitable,  Gregory  —  a  man 
fully  equal  to  the  occasion  —  was  there  to  meet  it.  His 
success,  such  as  it  was,  was  for  later  generations.  To  him- 
self personally  it  brought  the  crown  of  tragedy  only,  with- 
out even  any  consciousness  of  victory  gained. 

The  Pope  lived  not  quite  a  year  in  Salerno.  He  died  in 
that  world  of  delight  in  the  sweetness  of  the  May,  when 
all  is  doubly  sweet  by  those  flowery  hills  and  along  that 
radiant  shore.  Among  his  last  words  were  these:  —  "My 
brethren,  I  make  no  account  of  my  good  works:  my  only 
confidence  is  that  I  have  always  loved  justice  and  hated 
iniquity :  —  and  for  that  I  die  in  exile,"  he  added  before 
his  end.  In  the  silence  and  the  gathering  gloom  one  of  his 
attendants  cried  out,  "  How  can  you  say  in  exile,  my  lord, 
you  who,  the  Vicar  of  Christ  and  of  the  apostles,  have  re- 
ceived all  the  nations  for  your  inheritance,  and  the  world 
for  your  domain  ?  "  With  these  words  in  his  ears  the  Pope 
departed  to  that  country  which  is  the  hope  of  every  soul, 
where  iniquity  is  not  and  justice  reigns. 

He  died  on  the  25th  May,  1085,  not  having  yet  attained 
his  seventieth  year.  He  had  been  Pope  for  twelve  years 
only,  and  during  that  time  had  lived  in  continual  danger, 
fighting  always  for  the  Church  against  the  world.  A  suffer- 
ing and  a  melancholy  man,  his  life  had  none  of  those  solaces 
which  are  given  to  the  commonest  and  the  poorest.  His 
dearest  friends  were  far  from  him:  the  hope  of  his  life 
was  lost :  he  thought  no  doubt  that  his  standard  fell  with 
him,  and  that  the  labours  of  his  life  were  lost  also,  and  had 
come  to  nothing.  But  it  was  not  so ;  Gregory  VII.  is  still 
after  these  centuries  one  of  the  greatest  Popes  of  Rome: 
and  though  time  has  wrought  havoc  with  that  great  ideal 
of  the  Arbiter  and  universal  Judge  which  never  could  have 
been  made  into  practical  reality,  unless  the  world  and  the 
Church  had  been  assured  of  a  succession  of  the  wisest  and, 
holiest  of  men — he  yet  secured  for  a  time  something  like 


306 


THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.   [CH.  m. 


that  tremendous  position  for  a  number  of  his  successors, 
and  created  an  opinion  and  sentiment  throughout  Christ- 
endom that  the  reforms  on  which  he  insisted  ought  to  be, 
which  is  almost  the  nearest  that  humanity  can  come  to 
universal  reformation.  The  Church  which  he  left  seemed 
shattered  into  a  hundred  fragments,  and  he  died  exiled  and 
powerless ;  but  yet  he  opened  the  greatest  era  of  her  exist- 
ence to  what  has  always  been  one  of  the  wisest,  and  still 
remains  one  of  the  strongest  institutions  in  the  world, 
against  which,  in  spite  of  many  errors  and  much  tribula- 
tions, it  has  never  been  in  the  power  of  the  gates  of  hell  to 
prevail. 


IN   THE   VILLA   BORGHESE. 


THE   FOUNTAIN    OF  THE   TORTOISE. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


INNOCENT    III. 

IT  is  not  our  object,  the  reader  is  aware,  to  give  here  a 
history  of  Rome,  or  of  its  pontiffs,  or  of  the  tumultuous 
world  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  which  a  few  figures  of  Popes 
and  Princes  stand  out  upon  the  ever-crowded,  ever-changing 
background,  helping  us  to  hear  among  the  wild  confusion 
of  clanging  swords  and  shattering  lances,  of  war  cries  and 
shouts  of  rage  and  triumph  —  and  to  see  amidst  the  mist 
and  smoke,  the  fire  and  flame,  the  dust  of  breached  walls 
and  falling  houses.  Our  intention  is  solely  to  indicate 
those  among  the  chiefs  of  the  Church  who  are  of  the  most 
importance  to  the  great  city,  which,  ever  rebelling  against 
them,  ever  carrying  on  a  scarcely  broken  line  of  opposition 
and  resistance,  was  still  passive  in  their  hands  so  far  as  pos- 

307 


308  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

terity  is  concerned,  dragged  into  light,  or  left  lying  in  dark- 
ness, according  as  its  rulers  were.  It  is  usual  to  say  that 
the  great  time  of  the  Church,  the  age  of  its  utmost  ascen- 
dency, was  during  the  period  between  Gregory  VII.  and 
Innocent  III.,  the  first  of  whom  put  forth  its  claim  as  Uni- 
versal Arbiter  and  Judge  as  no  one  had  ever  done  before, 
while  the  second  carried  that  claim  to  its  climax  in  his  re- 
markable reign  —  a  reign  all-influencing,  almost  all-potent, 
something  more  like  a  universal  supremacy  and  rule  over  the 
whole  earth  than  has  ever  been  known  either  before  or  since. 
The  reader  has  seen  what  was  the  effect  upon  his  world  of 
the  great  Hildebrand :  how  he  laboured,  how  he  proclaimed 
his  great  mission,  with  what  overwhelming  faith  he  believed 
in  it,  and,  it  must  be  added,  with  how  little  success  he  was 
permitted  to  carry  it  out.  This  great  Pope,  asserting  his 
right  as  the  successor  of  Peter  to  something  very  like  a  uni- 
versal dominion  and  the  power  of  setting  down  and  raising 
up  all  manner  of  thrones,  principalities,  and  powers,  lived 
fighting  for  the  very  ground  he  stood  on,  in  an  incessant 
struggle  not  only  with  the  empire,  but  with  every  illiterate 
and  ignoble  petty  court  of  his  neighbourhood,  with  the  rob- 
ber barons  of  the  surrounding  hills,  with  the  citizens  in  his 
streets,  with  the  villagers  on  his  land  —  and,  after  having 
had  more  than  once  his  independent  realm  restricted  to  the 
strong  walls  of  St.  Angelo,  had  at  last  to  abandon  his  city 
for  mere  safety's  sake,  and  die  in  exile  far  from  the  Rome 
he  loved. 

The  life  of  the  other  we  have  now  to  trace,  as  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  keep  the  thread  of  it  amid  the  tremendous  dis- 
orders, disastrous  wars  and  commotions  of  his  time,  in  all 
of  which  his  name  is  so  mingled  that  in  order  to  distinguish 
his  story  the  student  must  be  prepared  to  struggle  through 
what  is  really  the  history  of  the  world,  there  being  scarcely 
a  corner  of  that  world  —  none  at  least  with  which  history 
was  then  acquainted  —  which  was  not  pervaded  by  Inno- 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  309 

cent,  although  few  we  think  in  which  his  influence  had  any 
such  power  as  is  generally  believed. 

This  Pope  was  not  like  Hildebrand  a  man  of  the  people. 
He  had  a  surname  and  already  a  distinguished  one.  Lotha- 
rio Conti,  son  of  Trasimondo,  lord  of  Ferentino,  of  the 
family  of  the  Dukes  of  Spoleto,  was  born  in  the  year  1161 
in  the  little  town  of  Anagni,  where  his  family  resided,  a 
place  always  dear  to  him,  and  to  which  in  the  days  of  his 
greatness  he  loved  to  retire,  to  take  refuge  from  the  summer 
heats  of  Rome  or  other  more  tangible  dangers.  He  was 
thus  a  member  of  the  very  nobility  with  which  afterwards 
he  had  so  much  trouble,  the  unruly  neighbours  who  made 
every  road  to  Rome  dangerous,  and  the  suzerainty  of  the 
Pope  in  many  cases  a  simple  fiction.  The  young  Lothario 
had  three  uncles  in  the  Church  in  high  places,  all  of  them 
eventually  Cardinals,  and  was  destined  to  the  ecclesiastical 
profession,  in  which  he  was  so  certain  of  advancement,  from 
his  birth;  he  was  educated  partly  at  Rome,  at  the  school  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  specially  destined  for  the  training  of  the 
clergy,  and  therefore  spent  his  boyhood  under  the  shadow 
of  the  palace  which  was  to  be  his  home  in  later  years.  From 
Rome  he  went  to  the  University  of  Paris,  one  of  the  great- 
est of  existing  schools,  and  studied  canon  law  so  as  to  make 
himself  an  authority  on  that  subject,  then  one  of  the  most 
engrossing  and  important  branches  of  learning.  He  loved 
the  "beneficial  tasks,"  and  perhaps  also  the  freedom  and 
freshness  of  university  life,  where  probably  the  bonds  of  the 
clerical  condition  were  less  felt  than  in  other  places,  though 
Innocent  never  seems  to  have  required  indulgence  in  that 
respect.  Besides  his  readings  in  canon  lawr  he  studied  with 
great  devotion  the  Scriptures,  and  their  interpretation,  after 
the  elaborate  and  highly  artificial  fashion  of  the  day,  divid- 
ing each  text  into  a  myriad  of  heads,  and  building  up  the 
most  recondite  argument  on  a  single  phrase  with  meanings 
spiritual,  temporal,  scholastic,  and  imaginary.  There  he 


•310  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

made  several  warm  friends,  among  others  Robert  Curzon, 
an  Englishman  who  served  him  afterwards  in  various  high 
offices,  not  so  much  to  the  credit  of  their  honour  in  later 
times  as  of  the  faithfulness  of  their  friendship. 

Young  Conti  proceeded  afterwards  to  Bologna,  then 
growing  into  great  reputation  as  a  centre  of  instruction. 
He  had,  in  short,  the  best  education  that  his  age  was 
acquainted  with,  and  returned  to  his  ecclesiastical  home  at 
Rome  and  the  protection  of  his  Cardinal-uncles  a  perfectly 
well-trained  and  able  young  man,  learned  in  all  the  learning 
of  his  day,  acquainted  more  or  less  with  the  world,  and 
ready  for  any  service  which  the  Church  to  which  he  was 
wholly  devoted  might  require  of  him.  He  was  a  young 
man  certain  of  promotion  in  any  case.  He  had  no  sooner 
taken  the  first  orders  than  he  was  made  a  canon  of  St. 
Peter's,  of  itself  an  important  position,  and  his  name  very 
soon  appears  as  acting  in  various  causes  brought  on  appeal 
to  Rome  —  claims  of  convents,  complaints  among  others  of 
the  monks  of  Canterbury  in  some  forgotten  question,  where 
he  was  the  champion  of  the  complainants  who  were  after- 
wards to  bring  him  into  so  much  trouble.  These  appeals 
were  constantly  occurring,  and  occupied  a  great  deal  of  the 
time  and  thoughts  of  that  learned  and  busy  court  of  Rome, 
the  Consistory,  which  became  afterwards,  under  Innocent 
himself,  the  one  great  court  of  appeal  for  the  world. 

About  a  hundred  years  had  passed  between  the  death  of 
the  great  Pope  Gregory,  the  monk  Hildebrand,  and  the 
entrance  of  Lothario  Conti  upon  public  life ;  but  when  the 
reader  surveys  the  condition  of  that  surging  sea  of  society 
—  the  crowded,  struggling,  fighting,  unresting  world,  which 
gives  an  impression  of  being  more  crowded,  more  teeming 
with  wild  life  and  force,  with  constant  movement  and  tur- 
moil, than  in  our  calmer  days,  though  no  doubt  the  facts 
are  quite  the  reverse  —  he  will  find  but  little  change  apparent 
in  the  tremendous  scene.  As  Gregory  left  the  nations  in 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  311 

endless  war  and  fighting,  so  his  great  successor  found  them 
—  king  warring  against  king,  prince  against  prince,  count 
against  count,  city  against  city,  nay,  village  against  village, 
with  a  wide  margin  of  personal  struggle  around,  and  a 
general  war  with  the  Church  maintained  by  all.  A  pano- 
rama of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them, 
could  it  have  been  furnished  to  any  onlooker,  would  have 
showed  its  minutest  lines  of  division  by  illuminations  of 
devastating  fire  and  flame,  by  the  clangour  of  armies  in 
collision,  by  wild  freebooters  in  roaming  bands,  and  little 
feudal  wars  in  every  district:  every  man  in  pursuit  of 
something  that  was  his  neighbour's,  perhaps  only  his  life, 
a  small  affair  —  perhaps  his  wife,  perhaps  his  lands,  pos- 
sibly the  mere  satisfaction  of  a  feud  which  was  always  on 
hand  to  fill  up  the  crevices  of  more  important  fighting. 

With  more  desperate  hostility  still  the  cities  in  pairs  set 
themselves  against  each  other,  all  flourishing,  busy  places, 
full  of  industry,  full  of  invention,  but  fuller  still  of  rage 
against  the  brother  close  by,  of  the  same  tongue  and  race, 
Milan  against  Parma,  Pisa  against  Genoa,  Florence  against 
all  comers.  Bigger  wars  devastated  other  regions,  Ger- 
many in  particular  in  all  its  many  subdivisions,  where  it 
seems  impossible  to  believe  there  could  ever  be  a  loaf  of 
bread  or  a  cup  of  wine  of  native  growth,  so  perpetually  was 
every  dukedom  ravaged  and  every  principality  brought  to 
ruin.  Two  Emperors  claiming  the  allegiance  of  that  vast 
impossible  holy  Empire  which  extended  from  the  northern 
sea  to  the  soft  Sicilian  shores,  two  Popes  calling  themselves 
heads  of  the  Church,  were  matters  of  every  day.  The 
Emperors  had  generally  each  a  show  of  right ;  but  the  anti- 
popes,  though  they  had  each  a  party,  were  altogether  false 
functionaries  with  no  show  of  law  in  their  favour,  gener- 
ally mere  creatures  of  the  empire,  though  often  triumphant 
for  a  moment.  In  Gregory's  day  Henry  IV.  and  Kudolf 
were  the  contending  Emperors.  In  those  of  Innocent  they 


312  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

were  Philip  and  Otho.  There  were  no  doubt  different 
principles  involved,  but  the  effect  was  the  same;  in  both 
cases  the  Popes  were  deeply  concerned,  each  asserting  a 
prerogative,  a  right  to  choose  between  the  contending  can- 
didates and  terminate  the  strife.  That  prerogative  had 
been  boldly  claimed  and  asserted  by  Gregory;  in  the  cen- 
tury that  followed  every  Pope  had  reasserted  and  attempted 
with  all  his  might  to  enforce  it;  but  though  Innocent  is 
universally  set  forth  as  the  greatest  and  most  powerful  of 
all  who  did  so,  and  as  in  part  responsible  for  almost  every 
evil  thing  that  resulted,  I  do  not  myself  see  that  his  inter- 
ference was  much  more  potential  than  that  of  Gregory,  of 
which  also  so  much  is  said,  but  which  was  so  constantly 
baulked,  thwarted,  and  contradicted  in  his  day.  So  far  as 
the  Empire  was  concerned  the  Popes  certainly  possessed  a 
right  and  privilege  which  gave  a  certain  countenance  to 
their  claim,  for  until  crowned  by  the  ruling  Pontiff  no 
Emperor  had  full  possession  of  his  crown:  but  this  did  not 
affect  the  other  Christian  kingdoms  over  which  Innocent 
claimed  and  attempted  to  exercise  the  same  prerogative. 
The  state  of  things,  however,  to  the  spectator  is  very  much 
the  same  in  the  one  century  as  the  other.  The  age  of  storm 
and  stress  for  the  world  of  Christendom  extended  from 
one  to  another;  no  doubt  progress  was  being  made,  founda- 
tions laid,  and  possibilities  slowly  coming  into  operation, 
of  which  the  beginnings  may  be  detected  even  among  all 
the  noise  and  dust  of  the  wars ;  but  outwardly  the  state  of 
Europe  was  very  much  the  same  under  Innocent  as  under 
Gregory:  they  had  the  same  difficulties  to  encounter  and 
the  same  ordeals  to  go  through. 

Several  short-lived  Popes  succeeded  each  other  on  the 
papal  throne  after  Innocent  began  to  ascend  the  steps  of 
ecclesiastical  dignity,  which  were  so  easy  to  the  nephew  of 
three  Cardinals.  He  became  a  canon  of  St.  Peter's  while 
little  more  than  twenty-one.  Pope  Lucius  III.  employed 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  313 

him  about  his  court,  Pope  Gregory  VIII.  made  him  a  sub- 
deacon  of  Rome.  Pope  Clement  III.  was  his  uncle  Octavian, 
and  made  him  Cardinal  of  "St.  Sergius  and  St.  Bacchus," 
a  curious  combination,  and  one  which  would  better  have 
become  a  more  jovial  priest.  Then  there  came  a  faint  and 
momentary  chill  over  the  prospects  of  the  most  rising 
and  prosperous  young  ecclesiastic  in  Eome.  His  uncle  was 
succeeded  in  the  papal  chair  by  a  certain  Cardinal,  old  and 
pious  but  little  known  to  history,  a  member  of  the  Orsini 
family  and  hostile  to  the  Conti,  so  that  our  young  Cardinal 
relapsed  a  little  into  the  cold  shade.  It  is  supposed  to  be 
during  this  period  that  he  turned  his  thoughts  to  literature, 
and  wrote  his  first  book,  a  singular  one  for  his  age  and 
position  —  and  yet  perhaps  not  so  unlike  the  utterance  of 
triumphant  youth  under  its  first  check  as  might  be  supposed 
— De  contemptu  mundi,  sive  de  miseriis  humance  conditionis, 
is  its  title.  It  was  indeed  the  view  of  the  world  which 
every  superior  mind  was  supposed  to  take  in  his  time,  as  it 
has  again  become  the  last  juvenile  fashion  in  our  own;  but 
the  young  Cardinal  Conti  had  greater  justification  than  our 
young  prophets  of  evil.  His  work  is  full,  as  it  always 
continues  to  be  in  his  matured  years,  of  the  artificial  con- 
structions which  Paris  and  Bologna  taught,  and  which 
characterise  the  age  of  the  schoolmen :  and  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  he  had  much  that  was  new  to  say  of  that 
everlasting  topic  which  was  as  hackneyed  in  the  twelfth 
century  as  it  is  in  the  nineteenth.  After  he  has  explained 
that  "every  male  child  on  his  birth  cries  A  and  every 
female  E ;  and  when  you  say  A  with  E  it  makes  Eva,  and 
what  is  Eva  if  not  heu !  ha !  —  alas !  "  —  he  adds  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  troubles  of  life  which  is  not  quite  so  fanciful. 

"  We  enter  life  amid  pains  and  cries,  presenting  no  agreeable  aspect, 
lower  even  than  plants  and  vegetables,  which  give  forth  at  least  a  pleas- 
ant odour.  The  duration  of  life  becomes  shorter  every  day  ;  few  men 
reach  their  fortieth  year,  a  very  small  number  attain  the  sixtieth.  .  .  . 
And  how  painful  is  life  !  Death  threatens  us  constantly,  dreams  frighten 


314  THE   MAKERS  OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

us,  apparitions  disturb  us,  we  tremble  for  our  friends,  for  our  relations  ; 
before  we  are  prepared  for  it  misfortune  has  come :  sickness  surprises 
us,  death  cuts  the  thread  of  our  life.  All  the  centuries  have  not  been 
enough  to  teach  even  to  the  science  of  medicine  the  different  kind  of 
sufferings  to  which  man's  fragility  exposes  him.  Human  nature  is 
more  corrupt  from  day  to  day;  the  world  and  our  bodies  grow  old. 
Often  the  guilty  is  acquitted  and  the  innocent  is  punished.  .  .  .  Every 
thought,  every  act,  all  the  arts  and  devices  are  employed  for  no  other 
end  but  to  secure  the  glory  and  favour  of  men.  To  gain  honour  he 
uses  flattery,  he  prays,  he  promises,  he  tries  every  underground  way 
if  he  cannot  get  what  he  wants  by  direct  measures  ;  or  he  takes  it  by 
force  if  he  can  depend  on  the  support  of  friends  or  of  relations.  And 
what  a  burden  are  those  high  dignities !  When  the  ambitious  man 
has  attained  the  height  of  his  desires  his  pride  knows  no  bounds,  his 
arrogance  is  without  restraint ;  he  believes  himself  so  much  a  better 
man  as  he  is  more  elevated  in  position ;  he  disdains  his  friends,  recog- 
nises no  one,  despises  his  oldest  connections,  walking  proudly  with  his 
head  high,  insolent  in  words,  the  enemy  of  his  superiors  and  the  tyrant 
of  his  dependents." 

The  young  Cardinal  spares  no  class  in  his  animadver- 
sions, but  the  rich  are  held  up  as  warnings  rather  than  the 
poor,  and  the  vainglory  of  the  miserable  sons  of  Adam  is 
what  disgusts  him  most.  Here  is  a  passage  which  carries 
us  into  the  inner  life  of  that  much  devastated,  often  ruined 
Eome,  which  nevertheless  at  its  most  distracted  moment 
was  never  quite  devoid  of  the  splendours  and  luxuries  it 
loved. 

"  Has  not  the  prophet  declared  his  anathema  against  luxury  in  dress  ? 
Yet  the  face  is  coloured  with  artificial  colours  as  if  the  art  of  man  could 
improve  the  work  of  God.  What  can  be  more  vain  than  to  curl  the 
hair,  to  paint  the  cheeks,  to  perfume  the  person  ?  And  what  need  is 
there  for  a  table  ornamented  with  a  rich  cover,  and  laid  with  knives 
mounted  in  ivory,  and  vases  of  gold  and  silver  ?  What  more  vain 
again  than  to  paint  the  rooms,  to  cover  the  doors  with  fine  carvings, 
to  lay  down  carpets  in  the  ante-chambers,  to  repose  one's  self  on  a  bed 
of  down,  covered  with  silken  stuffs  and  surrounded  with  curtains  ?  " 

Some  historical  commentators  take  exception  to  this 
picture  as  imaginary,  and  too  luxurious  for  the  age;  but 
after  all  a  man  of  the  time  must  have  known  better  than 
even  Muratori  our  invaluable  guide :  and*we  find  again  and 
again  in  the  descriptions  of  booty  taken  in  the  wars,  accounts 
of  the  furniture  of  the  tents  of  the  conquered,  silver  and 


iv.j  INNOCENT   III.  315 

gold  vases,  and  costly  ornaments  of  the  table  which  if  car- 
ried about  to  embellish  the  wandering  and  brief  life  of  a 
campaign  would  surely  be  more  likely  still  to  appear  among 
the  riches  of  a  settled  dwelling-place.  Cardinal  Lothario 
however  did  not  confine  himself  altogether  to  things  he  had 
intimate  knowledge  of,  for  one  of  his  illustrations  is  that 
of  a  discontented  wife,  a  character  of  which  he  could  have 
no  personal  experience :  the  picture  is  whimsically  correct 
to  conventional  precedent ;  it  is  the  established  piece  which 
we  are  so  well  acquainted  with  in  every  age. 

"  She  desires  fine  jewels  and  dresses,  and  beautiful  furniture  with- 
out regard  to  the  means  of  her  husband  ;  if  she  does  not  get  them  she 
complains,  she  weeps,  she  grumbles  and  murmurs  all  night  through. 
Then  she  says,  '  So-and-so  is  much  more  expensive  than  I  am,  and 
everybody  respects  her ;  while  I,  because  I  am  poor,  they  look  at  me 
disdainfully  over  their  shoulders.'  Nobody  must  be  praised  or  loved 
but  herself ;  if  any  other  is  beloved  she  thinks  herself  hated  ;  if  any 
one  is  praised  she  thinks  herself  injured.  She  insists  that  everybody 
should  love  what  she  loves,  and  hate  what  she  hates ;  she  will  submit 
to  nothing  but  dominates  all ;  everything  ought  to  be  permitted  to  her, 
and  nothing  forbidden.  And  after  all  (adds  the  future  pope)  whatever 
she  may  be,  ugly,  sick,  mad,  imperious,  ill-tempered,  whatever  may 
be  her  faults,  she  must  be  kept  if  she  is  not  unchaste  ;  and  even  then 
though  the  man  may  separate  from  her,  he  may  not  take  another." 

This  sounds  as  if  the  young  Cardinal  would  have  been 
less  severe  on  the  question  of  divorce  than  his  clerical  suc- 
cessors. The  book  however  is  quite  conventional,  and  gives 
us  little  insight  into  the  manner  of  man  he  was.  Never- 
theless there  are  some  actual  thoughts  in  the  perennial  and 
often  repeated  argument,  as  when  he  maintains  the  sombre 
doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  with  the  words :  "  Deliver- 
ance will  not  be  possible  in  hell,  for  sin  will  remain  as  an 
inclination  even  when  it  cannot  be  carried  out."  He  also 
wrote  a  book  upon  the  Mass  in  the  quiet  of  these  early 
days ;  and  was  diligent  in  performing  his  duties  and  visiting 
the  poor,  to  whom  he  was  always  full  of  charity. 

When  the  old  Pope  died,  however,  there  seems  not  to 
have  been  a  moment's  doubt  as  to  who  should  succeed  him. 


316  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

The  Cardinal  Lothario  was  but  thirty-seven,  his  ability  and 
learning  were  known  indeed,  but  had  as  yet  produced  no 
great  result :  his  family  was  distinguished  but  not  of  force 
enough  to  overawe  the  Conclave,  and  nothing  but  the 
impression  produced  upon  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries 
by  his  character  and  acquirements  could  account  for  his 
early  advancement.  Pope  Celestine  in  dying  had  recom- 
mended with  great  insistence  the  Cardinal  John  Colonna 
as  his  successor ;  but  this  seems  scarcely  to  have  been  taken 
into  consideration  by  the  electors,  who  now,  according  to 
Hildebrand's  institution,  somewhat  modified  by  succeeding 
Popes,  performed  their  office  without  any  pretence  of  con- 
sulting either  priests  or  people,  and  still  less  with  any 
reference  to  the  Emperor.  The  election  was  held,  not  in 
the  usual  place,  but  in  a  church  now  untraceable,  "Ad 
Septa  Solis,"  situated  somewhere  near  the  Colosseum.  The 
object  of  the  Cardinals  in  making  the  election  there,  was 
safety,  the  German  troops  of  the  Emperor  being  at  the  time 
in  possession  of  the  entire  surrounding  country  up  to  the 
very  gates  of  Kome,  and  quite  capable  of  making  a  raid 
upon  the  Lateran  to  stop  any  proceedings  which  might  be 
disagreeable  to  their  master;  for  the  imperial  authorities 
on  their  part  had  never  ceased  to  assert  their  right  to  be 
consulted  in  the  election  of  a  Pope.  Lothario  made  the 
orthodox  resistance  without  which  perhaps  no  early  Pope 
ever  ascended  the  papal  throne,  protesting  his  own  inca- 
pacity for  so  great  an  office;  but  the  Cardinals  insisted,  not 
granting  him  even  a  day's  delay  to  think  over  it.  The  first 
of  the  Cardinal-deacons,  Gratiano,  an  old  man,  invested 
him  with  the  pluvial  and  greeted  him  as  Innocent,  appar- 
ently leaving  him  no  choice  even  as  to  his  name.  Thus 
the  grave  young  man,  so  learned  and  so  austere,  in  the 
fulness  of  his  manhood  ascended  St.  Peter's  chair.  There 
is  no  need  to  suppose  that  there  was  any  hypocrisy  in  his 
momentary  resistance ;  the  papal  crown  was  very  far  from 


THE  CAFITOL. 


To  face  page  316, 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  319 

being  one  of  roses,  and  a  young  man,  even  if  he  had  looked 
forward  to  that  position  and  knew  himself  qualified  for  it, 
might  well  have  a  moment's  hesitation  when  it  was  about 
to  be  placed  on  his  head. 

When  the  announcement  of  the  election  was  made  to  the 
crowd  outside,  it  was  received  with  cries  of  joy :  and  the 
entire  throng  —  consisting  no  doubt  in  a  large  degree  of 
the  clergy,  mingled  with  the  ever-abundant  masses  of  the 
common  people,  — accompanied  the  Cardinals  and  the  Pope- 
elect  to  the  Lateran,  though  that  church,  one  would  sup- 
pose, must  still  have  been  occupied  by  the  old  Pope  on  his 
bier,  and  hung  with  the  emblems  of  mourning:  for  it  was 
on  the  very  day  of  Celestine's  death  that  the  election  took 
place.  Muratori  suggests  a  mistake  of  dates.  "Either 
Pope  Celestine  must  have  died  a  day  sooner,  or  Innocent 
have  been  elected  a  day  later,"  he  says.  After  the  account, 
more  full  than  usual,  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  election,  the 
brilliant  procession,  and  the  rejoicing  crowd,  sweep  away 
into  the  silence,  and  no  more  is  heard  of  them  for  six  weeks, 
during  which  time  Lothario  waited  for  the  Kogation  days, 
the  proper  time  for  ordinations ;  for  though  he  had  already 
risen  so  high  in  the  Church,  he  was  not  yet  a  priest,  but 
only  in  deacon's  orders,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  case 
in  so  many  instances.  The  two  ordinations  took  place  on 
two  successive  days,  the  22nd  and  23rd  of  February,  1198. 

When  he  had  received  the  final  consecration,  and  had 
been  invested  with  all  the  symbols  of  his  high  office  —  the 
highest  in  the  world  to  his  own  profound  consciousness,  and 
to  the  belief  of  all  who  surrounded  him  —  Pope  Innocent 
III.  rose  from  the  papal  chair,  of  which  he  had  just  taken 
possession,  and  addressed  the  immense  assembly.  Whether 
it  had  become  the  custom  to  do  so  we  are  not  informed. 
Innocent,  so  far  as  can  be  made  out  from  his  writings,  was 
no  heaven-born  preacher,  yet  he  would  seem  to  have  been 
very  ready  to  exercise  his  gift,  such  as  it  was ;  it  appears 


320  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

to  have  been  his  habit  to  explain  himself  in  all  the  most 
important  steps  in  life,  and  there  could  be  no  greater  occa- 
sion than  this.  He  stood  on  the  steps  of  his  throne  in  all 
the  glory  of  his  shining  robes,  over  the  dark  and  eager 
crowd,  and  there  addressed  to  them  a  discourse  in  which 
the  highest  pretensions,  yet  the  most  humble  faith,  are 
conjoined,  and  which  shows  very  clearly  with  what  inten- 
tions and  ideas  he  took  upon  himself  the  charge  of  Christen- 
dom, and  supreme  authority  not  only  in  the  Church  but  in 
the  world.  He  had  been  deeply  agitated  during  the  cere- 
monies of  his  consecration,  shedding  many  tears;  but  now 
he  had  recovered  his  composure  and  calm. 

There  are  four  sermons  existing  among  his  works  which 
bear  the  title  In  consecrations  Romani  Pontificis.  Whether 
they  were  all  written  for  this  occasion,  in  repeated  essays 
before  he  satisfied  himself  with  what  he  had  to  say,  is 
unknown.  Perhaps  some  of  them  were  used  on  the  occasion 
of  the  consecration  of  other  great  dignitaries  of  the  Church ; 
but  this  is  merely  conjecture.  We  have  at  all  events  under 
his  own  hand  the  thoughts  which  arose  in  the -mind  of  such 
a  man  at  the  moment  of  such  an  elevation :  the  conception 
of  his  new  and  great  dignity  which  he  had  formed  and  held 
with  the  faith  of  absolute  conviction :  and  the  purposes  with 
which  he  began  his  work.  His  text,  if  text  was  necessary 
for  so  personal  a  discourse,  was  the  words  of  our  Lord: 
"  Who  then  is  that  faithful  and  wise  steward  whom  his  lord 
shall  make  ruler  over  his  household,  to  give  them  their  por- 
tion of  meat  in  due  season  ?  "  We  quote  of  course  from  our 
own  authorised  version :  the  words  of  the  Vulgate,  used  by 
Innocent,  do  not  put  this  sentence  in  the  form  of  a  question. 
His  examination  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  house  "  is  the 
first  portion  of  the  argument. 

"  He  has  constituted  in  the  fulness  of  his  power  the  pre-eminence  of 
the  Holy  See  that  no  one  may  be  so  bold  as  to  resist  the  order  which 
He  has  established,  as  He  has  Himself  said :  '  Thou  art  Peter,  and 


iv.]  INNOCENT   III.  321 

upon  this  stone  I  will  build  my  Church ;  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  it.'  For  as  it  is  He  who  has  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  Church,  and  is  himself  that  foundation,  the  gates  of  hell  could 
in  nothing  prevail  against  it.  And  this  foundation  is  immovable  :  as 
says  the  Apostle,  no  man  can  lay  another  foundation  than  that  which 
is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ.  .  .  .  This  is  the  building  set  upon  a 
rock  of  which  eternal  truth  has  said  :  '  The  rain  fell  and  the  wind 
blew  and  beat  upon  that  house  ;  but  it  stood  fast,  for  it  was  built  upon 
a  rock,'  that  is  to  say,  upon  the  rock  of  which  the  Apostle  said  :  *  And 
this  Rock  was  Christ.'  It  is  evident  that  the  Holy  See,  far  from  being 
weakened  by  adversity,  is  fortified  by  the  divine  promise,  saying  with 
the  prophet :  'Thou  hast  led  me  by  the  way  of  affliction.'  It  throws 
itself  with  confidence  on  that  promise  which  the  Lord  has  made  to  the 
Apostles :  '  Behold  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world.'  Yes,  God  is  with  us,  who  then  can  be  against  us  ?  for  this 
house  is  not  of  man  but  of  God,  and  still  more  of  God  made  man  :  the 
heretic  and  the  dissident,  the  evil-minded  wolf  endeavours  in  vain  to 
waste  the  vineyard,  to  tear  the  robe,  to  smother  the  lamp,  to  extin- 
guish the  light.  But  as  was  said  by  Gamaliel :  '  If  the  work  is  of  man 
it  will  come  to  naught ;  if  it  is  of  God  ye  cannot  overthrow  it :  lest 
haply  ye  should  find  that  you  are  fighting  against  God.'  The  Lord  is 
my  trust.  I  fear  nothing  that  men  can  do  to  me.  I  am  the  servant 
whom  God  has  placed  over  His  house  ;  may  I  be  prudent  and  faithful 
so  as  to  give  the  meat  in  due  season  !  " 

He  then  goes  on  to  describe  the  position  of  the  faithful 
steward. 

"I  am  placed  over  this  house.  God  grant  that  I  were  as  eminent 
by  my  merit  as  by  my  position.  But  it  is  all  the  more  to  the  honour 
of  the  mighty  Lord  when  He  fulfils  His  will  by  a  feeble  servant ;  for 
then  all  is  to  His  glory,  not  by  human  strength  but  by  force  divine. 
Who  am  I,  and  what  is  my  father's  house,  that  I  should  be  set  over 
kings,  that  I  should  occupy  the  seat  of  honour  ?  for  it  is  of  me  that 
the  prophet  has  said,  '  I  have  set  thee  over  people  and  kingdoms,  to 
tear  and  to  destroy,  to  build  and  to  plant. '  It  is  of  me  that  the  Apostle 
has  said,  '  I  have  given  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ; 
whatsoever  thou  bindest  on  earth  is  bound  in  heaven.'  And  again  it 
is  to  me  (though  it  is  said  by  the  Lord  to  all  the  Apostles  in  common), 
'  The  sins  which  you  remit  on  earth  shall  be  remitted  ;  and  those  you 
retain  shall  be  retained.'  But  speaking  to  Peter  alone  He  said :  '  That 
which  thou  bindest  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven.'  Peter  may 
bind  others  but  he  cannot  be  bound  himself. 

"  You  see  now  who  is  the  servant  placed  over  the  house  ;  it  is  no  other 
than  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Successor  of  Peter.  He  is  the  in- 
termediary between  God  and  men,  beneath  God,  yet  above  men,  much 
lower  than  God  but  more  than  men  ;  he  judges  all  but  is  judged  by 
none  as  the  Apostle  says :  '  It  is  God  who  is  my  judge.'  But  he  who 
is  raised  to  the  highest  degree  of  consideration  is  brought  down  again 
by  the  functions  of  a  servant  that  the  humble  may  be  raised  up  and 


322  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

greatness  may  be  humiliated  —  for  God  resists  the  proud  but  gives 
grace  to  the  humble.  O  greatest  of  wise  counsels — the  greater  you 
are  the  more  profoundly  must  you  humble  yourself  before  them  all ! 
You  are  there  as  a  light  on  a  candlestick  that  all  in  the  house  may  see  ; 
when  that  light  becomes  dark,  how  thick  then  is  the  darkness  ?  You 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth  :  when  that  salt  becomes  without  savour,  with 
what  will  you  be  seasoned  ?  It  is  good  for  nothing  but  to  be  thrown 
out  and  trodden  under  foot  of  men.  For  this  reason  much  is  demanded 
from  him  to  whom  much  is  given." 

Thus  Innocent  began  his  career,  solemnly  conscious  of 
the  greatness  of  his  position.  But  the  reader  will  perceive 
that  nothing  could  be  more  evangelical  than,  his  doctrine. 
Exalting  as  he  does  the  high  claims  of  Peter,  he  never  falls 
into  the  error  of  supposing  him  to  be  the  Rock  on  which 
the  foundations  of  the  Church  are  laid.  On  the  other  hand 
his  idea  of  the  Pope  as  beneath  God  but  above  men,  lower 
than  God  but  greater  than  men,  is  startling.  The  angel 
who  stopped  St.  John  in  his  act  of  worship  proclaiming 
himself  one  of  the  Apostles'  brethren  the  prophets,  made 
no  such  pretension.  But  Innocent  was  strong  in  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  himself,  the  arbiter  on  earth  of  all  re- 
ward and  punishment,  was  the  judge  of  angels  as  well  as 
men,  and  held  a  higher  position  than  any  of  them  in  the 
hierarchy  of  heaven. 

The  first  act  of  Innocent's  papacy  was  the  very  legitimate 
attempt  to  establish  his  own  authority  and  independence  at 
home.  The  long  subsistence  of  the  idea  that  only  a  Pope- 
king  with  enough  of  secure  temporal  ascendency  to  keep 
him  free  at  least  from  the  influence  of  other  sovereigns, 
could  be  safe  in  the  exercise  of  his  spiritual  functions  —  is 
curious  when  we  think  of  the  always  doubtful  position  of 
the  Popes,  who  up  to  this  time  and  indeed  for  long  after 
retained  the  most  unsteady  footing  in  their  own  metropolis, 
the  city  which  derived  all  its  importance  from  them.  The 
Roman  citizens  took  many  centuries  to  learn  —  if  they 
were  ever  taught  —  that  the  seat  of  a  great  institution  like 
the  Church,  the  court  of  a  monarch  who  claimed  authority 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  323 

in  every  quarter  of  the  world,  was  a  much  more  important 
thing  than  a  mere  Italian  city,  however  distinguished  by 
the  memories  and  relics  of  the  past.  We  doubt  much 
whether  the  great  Innocent,  the  most  powerful  of  the  Popes, 
had  more  real  control  over  the  home  and  centre  of  his 
supposed  dominions  at  the  outset  of  his  career  than  Pope 
Leo  XIII.,  dispossessed  and  self-imprisoned,  has  now,  or 
might  have  if  he  chose.  No  one  can  doubt  that  Innocent 
chose  —  and  that  with  all  the  strength  and  will  of  an  un- 
usually powerful  character — to  be  master  in  his  own  house  : 
and  he  succeeded  by  times  in  the  effort;  but,  like  other 
Popes,  he  was  at  no  time  more  than  temporarily  successful. 
Twice  or  oftener  he  was  driven  by  the  necessity  of  circum- 
stances, if  not  by  actual  violence,  out  of  the  city  :  and 
though  he  never  altogether  lost  his  hold  upon  it,  as  several 
of  his  predecessors  had  done,  it  was  at  the  cost  of  much 
trouble  and  exertion,  and  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  that  he 
kept  his  place  in  Rome. 

He  was,  however,  in  the  first  flush  of  his  power,  almost 
triumphant.  He  succeeded  in  changing  the  fluctuating  con- 
stitution of  the  Roman  commonwealth,  which  had  been 
hitherto  presided  over  by  a  Prsefect,  responsible  to  the  Em- 
peror and  bound  to  his  service,  along  with  a  vague  body  of 
senators,  sometimes  larger,  sometimes  smaller  in  number, 
and  swayed  by  every  popular  demonstration  or  riot  —  the 
very  best  machinery  possible  for  the  series  of  small  revolu- 
tions and  changes  of  policy  in  which  Rome  delighted.  It 
was  in  every  way  the  best  thing  for  the  interests  of  the 
city  that  it  should  have  learnt  to  accept  the  distinction,  all 
others  having  perished,  of  being  the  seat  of  the  Church. 
For  Rome  was  by  this  time,  as  may  be  said,  the  general 
court  of  appeal  for  Europe ;  every  kind  of  cause  was  tried 
over  again  before  the  Consistory  or  its  delegates;  and  a 
crowd  of  appellants,  persons  of  all  classes  and  countries, 
were  always  in  Rome,  many  of  them  completely  without 


824  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

acquaintance  in  the  place,  and  dependent  only  upon  such 
help  and  guidance  as  money  could  procure,  money  which 
has  always  been  the  great  object  of  desire  to  most  com- 
munities, the  means  of  grandeur  and  greatness,  if  also  of 
much  degradation.  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
the  Pope  took  advantage  of  any  such  mean  motive  to  bind 
the  city  to  himself.  He  guarded  against  the  dangers  of 
such  a  situation  indeed  by  a  strenuous  endeavour  to  clear 
his  court,  his  palace,  his  surroundings,  of  all  that  was 
superfluous  in  the  way  of  luxury,  all  that  was  merely  osten- 
tatious in  point  of  attendants  and  services,  and  all  that  was 
mercenary  among  the  officials.  When  he  succeeded  in 
transferring  the  allegiance  of  the  Prsefect  from  the  Emperor 
to  himself,  he  made  at  the  same  time  the  most  stringent 
laws  against  the  reception  of  any  present  or  fee  by  that 
Prsefect  and  his  subordinate  officers,  thus  securing,  so  far  as 
was  possible,  the  integrity  of  the  city  and  its  rulers  as  well 
as  their  obedience.  And  whether  in  the  surprise  of  the 
community  to  be  so  summarily  dealt  with,  or  in  its  satis- 
faction with  the  amount  of  the  present,  which  Innocent, 
like  all  the  other  Popes,  bestowed  on  the  city  on  his  conse- 
cration, he  succeeded  in  carrying  out  these  changes  without 
opposition,  and  so  secured  before  he  went  further  a  certain 
shelter  and  security  within  the  walls  of  Eome. 

He  then  turned  his  eyes  to  the  States  of  the  Church,  the 
famous  patrimony  of  St.  Peter,  which  at  that  period  of  his- 
tory St.  Peter  was  very  far  from  possessing.  Certain  Ger- 
man adventurers,  to  whom  the  Emperor  had  granted  the  fiefs 
which  Innocent  claimed  as  belonging  to  the  Holy  See,  were 
first  summoned  to  do  homage  to  the  Pope  as  their  suzerain, 
then  threatened  with  excommunication,  then  laid  under 
anathema:  and  finally  —  Mark wald  and  the  rest  remaining 
unconvinced  and  unsubdued  —  were  driven  out  of  their  ill- 
gotten  lands  by  force  of  arms,  which  proved  the  most 
effectual  way.  The  existence  of  these  German  lords  was 


iv.]  INNOCENT  HI.  325 

the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  the  Papal  sway,  and 
was  efficacious  everywhere.  The  towns  little  and  great, 
scattered  over  the  March  of  Ancona,  the  duchy'  of  Spoleto, 
and  the  wealthy  district  of  Umbria,  received  the  Pope  and 
his  envoys  as  their  deliverers.  The  Tedeschi  were  as 
fiercely  hated  in  Italy  in  the  twelfth  century  as  they  were 
in  recent  times  j  and  with  greater  reason,  for  their  cruelty 
and  exactions  were  indescribable.  And  the  civic  spirit  which 
in  the  absence  of  any  larger  patriotism  kept  the  Italian  race 
in  energetic  life,  and  produced  in  every  little  centre  of 
existence  a  longing  for  at  least  municipal  liberty  and  inde- 
pendence, hailed  with  acclamations  the  advent  of  the  head 
of  the  Church,  a  suzerain  at  least  more  honourable  and  more 
splendid  than  the  rude  Teuton  nobles  who  despised  the  race 
over  which  they  ruled. 

That  spirit  had  already  risen  very  high  in  the  more  im- 
portant cities  of  Northern  Italy.  The  Lombard  league  had 
been  already  in  existence  for  a  number  of  years,  and  a  simi- 
lar league  was  now  formed  by  the  Tuscan  towns  which 
Innocent  also  claimed,  in  right  of  the  legacy  made  to  the 
Church  more  than  a  hundred  years  before  by  the  great 
Countess  Matilda,  the  friend  of  Hildebrand,  but  which  had 
never  yet  been  secured  to  the  Holy  See.  The  Tuscans  had 
not  been  very  obedient  vassals  to  Matilda  herself  in  her  day ; 
and  they  were  not  likely  perhaps  to  have  afforded  much 
support  to  the  Popes  had  the  Church  ever  entered  into  full 
enjoyment  of  Matilda's  splendid  legacy.  But  in  the  common 
spirit  of  hatred  against  the  Tedeschi,  the  cruel  and  fierce 
German  chiefs  to  whom  the  Emperor  had  freely  disposed  of 
the  great  estates  and  castles  and  rich  towns  of  that  wonder- 
ful country,  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  was  accepted 
joyfully  for  the  moment,  and  all  kinds  of  oaths  taken  and 
promises  made  of  fidelity  and  support  to  the  new  Pope. 
When  Innocent  appeared,  as  in  the  duchy  of  Spoleto,  in 
Perugia,  and  other  great  towns,  he  was  received  with  joy  as 


326  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  saviour  of  the  people.  We  are  not  told  whether  he 
visited  Assisi,  where  at  this  period  Francis  of  that  city  was 
drawing  crowds  of  followers  to  his  side,  and  the  idea  of  a 
great  monastic  order  was  rising  out  of  the  little  church,  the 
Portiuncula,  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill :  but  wherever  he  went 
he  was  received  with  joy.  At  Perugia,  when  the  papal 
procession  streamed  through  the  crowded  gates,  and  reached 
the  old  palazzo  appropriated  for  its  lodging,  there  suddenly 
sprang  up  a  well  which  had  been  greatly  wanted  in  the  place, 
a  spring  of  fresh  water  henceforward  and  for  ever  known  as 
the  Foiitana  di  Papa.  These  cities  all  joined  the  Tuscan 
league  against  the  Germans  with  the  exception  of  Pisa, 
always  arrogant  and  self-willed,  which  stood  for  those  same 
Germans  perhaps  because  their  rivals  on  every  side  were 
against  them.  It  was  at  this  period,  some  say,  and  that 
excellent  authority  Muratori  among  them,  that  the  titles  of 
Guelf  and  Ghibelline  first  came  into  common  use,  the  party 
of  the  Pope  being  Guelf,  and  that  of  the  empire  Ghibelline 
—  the  one  derived  from  the  house  of  Este,  which  was  de- 
scended from  the  old  Teutonic  race  of  Guelf  on  the  female 
side,  the  other,  Waiblingen,  from  that  of  Hohenstaufen,  also 
descended  by  the  female  side  from  a  traditionary  German' 
hero.  It  is  curious  that  these  distant  ancestors  should  have 
been  chosen  as  godfathers  of  a  struggle  with  which  they  had 
nothing  to  do,  and  which  arose  so  long  after  their  time. 

Innocent,  however,  was  not  so  good  a  Guelf  as  his  party, 
for  the  Pope  was  the  guardian  and  chief  defender,  during 
his  troubled  royal  childhood,  of  Frederic  of  Sicily,  after- 
wards the  Emperor  Frederic  II.,  but  at  the  beginning  of 
Pope  Innocent's  reign  a  very  helpless  baby  prince,  father- 
less, and  soon,  also,  motherless,  and  surrounded  by  rapa- 
cious Germans,  each  man  fighting  for  a  scheme  of  his  own, 
by  which  to  transfer  the  insecure  crown  to  his  own  head, 
or  at  least  to  rob  it  of  both  power  and  revenue.  The  Pope 
stood  by  his  helpless  ward  with  much  steadfastness  through 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  329 

the  very  brief  years  of  his  minority  —  for  Frederic  seems 
to  have  been  a  married  man  and  ambitious  autocrat  at  an 
age  when  ordinary  boys  are  but  beginning  their  studies 
—  and  had  a  large  share  eventually  in  his  elevation  to 
the  imperial  throne :  notwithstanding  that  he  belonged  to 
the  great  house  which  had  steadily  opposed  the  claims 
of  the  Papacy  for  generations.  It  must  be  added,  however, 
that  the  great  enterprises  of  Innocent's  first  years  could 
not  have  been  taken  up,  or  at  least  could  not  have  been 
carried  to  so  easy  and  summary  a  conclusion  —  whole  coun- 
tries recovered,  the  Emperor's  nominees  cast  out,  the  cities 
leagued  against  their  constant  invaders  and  oppressors  — 
had  there  been  a  fierce  Emperor  across  i  monti  ready  to 
descend  upon  the  always  struggling,  yet  continually  con- 
quered, Italy.  Henry  VI.,  the  son  of  Barbarossa,  had  died 
in  the  preceding  year,  1198,  in  the  flower  of  his  age,  leav- 
ing only  the  infant  Frederic,  heir  to  the  kingdom  of  Sicily 
in  right  of  his  mother,  behind  him  to  succeed  to  his  vast 
possessions.  But  the  crown  of  Germany  was,  at  least  nom- 
inally, elective  not  hereditary ;  and  notwithstanding  that 
the  Emperor  had  procured  from  his  princes  a  delusive  oath 
of  allegiance  to  his  child,  that  was  a  thing  which  in  those 
days  no  one  so  much  as  thought  of  keeping.  The  inac- 
tivity of  the  forces  of  the  Empire  was  thus  accounted  for ; 
the  holders  of  imperial  fiefs  in  Italy  were  left  to  fight  their 
own  battles,  and  thus  the  Pope  with  very  moderate  forces, 
and  the  cities  of  Tuscany  and  Umbria,  each  for 'its  own 
hand,  were  able  to  assert  themselves,  and  drive  out  the 
oppressors.  And  there  was  a  period  of  hopefulness  and 
comparative  peace. 

Innocent,  however,  who  had  the  affairs  of  the  world  on 
his  hands,  and  could  not  long  confine  himself  to  those  of 
St.  Peter's  patrimony,  was  soon  plunged  into  the  midst  of 
those  ever-recurring  struggles  in  Germany,  too  important 
in  every  way  not  to  call  for  his  closest  attention.  The 


330  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

situation  was  very  much  the  same  as  that  in  which  Greg- 
ory VII.  had  found  himself  involved :  with  this  great  dif- 
ference, however,  that  both  competitors  for  the  German 
crown  were  new  men,  and  had  neither  any  burden  of  crime 
against  the  Church  nor  previous  excommunications  on  their 
head.  Philip  of  Suabia,  the  brother  of  Henry  VI.,  had 
been  by  him  entrusted  —  with  that  curious  confidence  in 
the  possibility  of  self-devotion  on  the  part  of  others,  which 
dying  men,  though  never  capable  of  it  themselves,  so  often 
show  —  with  the  care  and  guardianship  of  his  child  and  its 
interests,  and  the  impossible  task  of  establishing  Frederic, 
as  yet  scarcely  able  to  speak,  upon  a  throne  so  important 
and  so  difficult.  Philip  did,  it  is  said,  his  best  to  fulfil  his 
trust  and  hurried  from  Sicily  to  the  heart  of  Germany  as 
soon  as  his  brother  was  dead,  with  that  object;  but  the 
princes  of  his  party  feared  an  infant  monarch,  and  he  was 
himself  elected  in  the  year  1199  to  the  vacant  seat.  There 
seems  no  criminality  in  this  in  the  circumstances,  for  the 
little  Frederic  was  in  any  case  impossible ;  but  Philip  had 
inherited  a  hatred  which  he  had  not  done  anything  per- 
sonally to  deserve.  "  So  exasperated  were  the  Italians 
against  the  Germans  by  the  barbarous  government  of  Fred- 
eric I.  and  Henry  VI.  his  son,  that  wherever  Philip  passed, 
whether  through  Tuscany  or  any  other  district,  he  was  ill- 
used  and  in  danger  of  his  life,  and  many  of  his  companions 
were  killed,"  says  Muratori.  He  had  thus  a  strong  feeling 
against  liim  in  Italy  independent  of  any  demerit  of  his  own. 
It  is  a  little  difficult,  however,  to  understand  why  Pope 
Innocent,  so  careful  of  the  interests  of  the  little  king  in 
Sicily,  should  have  so  strongly  and  persistently  opposed  his 
uncle.  Philip  had  been  granted  possession  of  the  duchy 
of  Tuscany,  which  the  Pope  claimed  as  his  own,  and  some 
offence  on  this  account,  as  well  as  the  shadow  of  an  anath- 
ema launched  against  him  for  the  same  reason  by  one  of 
Innocent's  predecessors,  may  have  prepossessed  the  Pope 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  331 

against  Mm;  but  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  accept  this  as 
reason  enough  for  his  determined  opposition. 

The  rival  emperor  Otho,  elected  by  the  Guelf  party,  was 
the  son  of  Henry  the  Lion,  the  nephew  of  Richard  Plan- 
tagenet  of  England  the  Coeur  de  Lion  of  our  national  story, 
and  of  a  family  always  devoted  to  the  Church.  The  two 
men  were  both  young  and  full  of  promise,  equally  noble 
and  of  great  descent,  related  to  each  other  in  a  distant 
degree,  trained  in  a  similar  manner,  each  of  them  quite  fit 
for  the  place  which  they  were  called  to  occupy.  It  seems  to 
the  spectator  now  as  if  there  was  scarcely  a  pin  to  choose 
between  them.  Nor  was  it  any  conflict  of  personal  ambi- 
tion which  set  them  up  against  each  other.  They  were  the 
choice  of  their  respective  parties,  and  the  question  was  as 
clearly  one  of  faction  against  faction  as  in  an  Irish  village 
fight. 

These  were  circumstances,  above  all  others,  in  which  the 
arbitration  of  such  an  impartial  judge  as  a  Pope  might  have 
been  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  the  world.  There  never 
was  perhaps  such  an  ideal  opportunity  for  testing  the  ad- 
vantage and  the  possibility  of  the  power  claimed  by  the 
Papacy.  Otho  was  a  young  gallant  at  Richard's  court 
expecting  nothing  of  the  kind,  open  to  all  kinds  of  other 
promotions,  Earl  of  Yorkshire,  Count  of  Poitou  —  the  first 
not  successful  because  he  could  not  conciliate  the  York- 
shiremen,  perhaps  difficult  in  that  way  then  as  now:  but 
without,  so  far  as  appears,  any  thought  of  the  empire  in  his 
mind.  And  Philip  had  the  right  of  possession,  and  was  the 
choice  of  the  majority,  and  had  done  no  harm  in  accepting 
his  election,  even  if  he  had  no  right  to  it.  The  case  was 
quite  different  from  that  of  the  similar  struggle  in  which 
Gregory  VII.  took  part.  At  the  earlier  period  the  whole 
world,  that  was  not  crushed  under  his  iron  foot,  had  risen 
against  Henry  IV.  His  falsehood,  his  cruelty,  his  vices,  had 
alienated  every  one,  and  nobody  believed  his  word  or  put 


332  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  smallest  faith,  even  in  his  most  solemn  vows.  The  strug- 
gle between  such  an  Emperor  and  the  head  of  the  Church 
was  naturally  a  struggle  to  death.  One  might  almost  say 
they  were  the  impersonations  of  good  and  evil,  notwith- 
standing that  the  good  might  be  often  alloyed,  and  the  evil 
perhaps  by  times  showed  gleams  of  better  meaning.  But 
the  case  of  Philip  and  Otho  was  completely  different. 
Neither  of  them  were  bad  men  nor  gave  any  augury  of 
evil.  The  one  perhaps  by  training  and  inclination  was 
slightly  a  better  Churchman  than  the  other  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  Philip  had 
various  practical  advantages  over  Otho  which  could  not  be 
gainsaid. 

Had  Pope  Innocent  been  the  wholly  wise  man  and  in- 
spired judge  .he  claimed  by  right  of  his  office  to  be,  without 
prejudice  or  bias,  nobly  impartial,  holding  the  balance  in  a 
steady  hand,  was  not  this  the  very  case  to  test  his  powers  ? 
Had  he  helped  the  establishment  of  Philip  in  the  empire 
and  deprecated  the  introduction  of  a  rival,  a  great  deal  of 
bloodshed  might  have  been  avoided,  and  a  satisfactory 
result,  without  any  injustice,  if  not  an  ideal  selection, 
might  have  been  obtained.  All  this  was  problematical, 
and  depended  upon  his  power  of  getting  himself  obeyed, 
which,  as  it  turned  out,  he  did  not  possess.  But  in  this 
way,  in  all  human  probability,  he  might  have  promoted  peace 
and  secured  a  peaceful  decision;  for  Philip's  election  was  a 
fait  accompli,  while  Otho  was  not  as  yet  more  than  a  can- 
didate. The  men  were  so  equal  otherwise,  and  there  was 
so  little  exclusive  right  on  one  side  or  the  other,  that  such 
facts  as  these  would  naturally  have  been  taken  into  the 
most  serious  consideration  by  the  great,  impartial,  and  un- 
biassed mind  which  alone  could  have  justified  the  interfer- 
ence of  the  Pope,  or  qualified  him  to  assume  the  part  of 
arbitrator  in  such  a  quarrel.  He  did  not  attempt  this,  how- 
ever, but  took  his  place  with  his  own  faction  as  if  he  had 


iv.]  INNOCENT  m.  333 

been  no  heaven-sent  arbiter  at  all,  but  a  man  like  any  other. 
He  has  himself  set  forth  the  motives  and  reasons  for  his 
interference,  with  the  fulness  of  explanation  which  he  loved. 
The  bull  in  which  he  begins  by  setting  aside  the  claims  of 
his  own  infant  ward,  Frederic,  to  whom  his  father  Henry 
had  caused  the  German  princes  to  swear  fealty,  as  inad- 
missible—  the  said  princes  being  freed  of  their  oath  by  the 
death  of  the  Emperor,  a  curious  conclusion  —  is  in  great  part 
an  indictment  of  Philip,  couched  in  the  strongest  and  most 
energetic  terms.  In  this  document  it  is  stated  in  the  first 
place  that  Philip  had  been  excommunicated  by  the  previous 
Pope,  as  having  occupied  by  violence  the  patrimony  of  St. 
Peter,  an  excommunication  taken  off  by  the  legate,  but  not 
effectually ;  again  he  was  involved  in  the  excommunication 
of  Markwald  and  the  other  invaders  of  Sicily  whom  he  had 
upheld;  in  the  next  place  he  had  been  false  to  the  little 
Frederic,  whose  right  he  had  vowed  to  defend,  and  was 
thus  perjured,  though  the  princes  who  had  sworn  allegiance 
to  the  child  were  not  so.  Then  follows  a  tremendous 
description  of  Philip's  family  and  predecessors,  of  their 
dreadful  acts  against  the  Popes  and  Church,  of  the  feuds 
of  Barbarossa  with  the  Holy  See,  of  the  insults  and  injuries 
of  which  all  had  been  equally  guilty.  A  persecutor  himself 
and  the  son  of  persecutors,  how  could  the  Pope  support 
the  cause  of  Philip?  The  argument  is  full  of  force  and 
strengthened  by  many  illustrations,  but  it  proves  above  all 
things  that  Innocent  was  no  impartial  judge,  but  a  man 
holding  almost  with  passion  to  his  own  side. 

The  pleas  in  favour  of  Otho  are  much  weaker.  It  is  true, 
the  Pope  admits,  that  he  had  been  elected  by  a  minority, 
but  then  the  number  of  notable  and  important  electors  were 
as  great  on  his  side  as  on  Philip's  :  his  house  had  a  purer 
record  than  that  of  Philip :  and  finally  he  was  weaker  than 
Philip  and  more  in  need  of  support ;  therefore  the  Holy  See 
threw  all  its  influence  upon  his  side.  Nothing  could  be 


334  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

feebler  than  this  conclusion  after  the  force  of  the  hostile 
judgments.  We  fear  it  must  be  allowed  that  Innocent 
being  merely  a  man  (which  is  the  one  unsurmountable  argu- 
ment against  papal  infallibility)  went  the  way  his  prepos- 
sessions and  inclinations  —  and  also,  we  have  no  doubt,  his 
conviction  of  what  was  best — led  him,  and  was  no  more 
certain  to  be  right  in  doing  so  than  any  other  man. 

Having  come  to  this  conclusion,  Innocent  took  his  stand 
with  all  the  power  and  influence  he  possessed  upon  Otho's 
side  —  a  support  which  probably  kept  that  prince  afloat  and 
made  the  long  struggle  possible,  but  was  quite  inadequate 
to  set  him  effectually  on  the  throne,  or  injure  his  rival  in 
any  serious  way.  In  this  partisan  warfare,  excommunica- 
tion was  the  readiest  of  weapons ;  but  excommunications,  as 
we  have  already  said,  were  very  ineffectual  in  the  greater 
number  of  cases ;  for  Germany  especially  was  full  of  great 
prelates  as  great  as  the  princes,  in  most  cases  of  as  high 
race  and  as  much  territorial  power,  and  they  by  no  means 
always  agreed  with  the  Pope,  and  made  no  pretence  of 
obeying  him ;  and  how  was  the  people  to  find  out  that  they 
lay  under  anathema  when  they  saw  the  offices  of  the  Church 
carried  on  with  all  the  splendour  of  the  highest  ritual,  its 
services  unbroken,  however  the  Pope  might  thunder  behind  ? 
Some  of  these  prelates  —  such  as  Leopold  of  Mainz,  ap- 
pointed by  the  Emperor,  to  whom  Innocent  refused  his 
sanction,  electing  on  his  own  part  another  archbishop, 
Siegfried,  in  his  stead,  who  was  not  for  many  years  per- 
mitted even  to  enter  the  diocese  of  which  he  was  the  titular 
head  —  maintained  with  Borne  a  struggle  as  obstinate  as 
any  secular  prince.  They  were  as  powerful  as  the  princes 
among  whom  they  sat  and  reigned,  and  elected  emperors. 
Most  of  the  German  bishops,  we  are  told,  were  on  Philip's 
side  notwithstanding  the  decision  of  the  Pope  against  him. 
In  such  circumstances  the  anathema  was  little  more  than  a 
farce.  The  Archbishop  of  Mainz  was  excommunicated  as 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  ,        335 

much,  as  the  emperor,  but  being  all  the  same  in  full  posses- 
sion of  his  see  and  its  privileges,  naturally  acted  as  though 
nothing  had  happened,  and  found  plenty  of  clergy  to  sup- 
port him,  who  carried  on  the  services  of  the  Church  as 
usual  and  administered  the  sacraments  to  Philip  as  much  as 
if  he  had  been  in  the  full  sunshine  of  Papal  favour. 

Such  a  chance  had  surely  never  been  foreseen  when  the 
expedient  of  excommunication  was  first  thought  of,  for  it 
is  apt  to  turn  every  claim  of  authority  into  foolishness  — 
threats  which  cannot  be  carried  out  being  by  their  nature 
the  most  derogatory  things  possible  to  the  person  from 
whom  they  proceed.  The  great  prelates  of  Germany  were 
in  their  way  as  important  as  the  Pope,  their  position  was 
more  steadily  powerful  than  his,  they  had  vassals  and  armies 
to  defend  them,  and  a  strong  and  settled  seat,  from  which 
it  was  as  difficult,  or  indeed  even  dangerous,  to  displace 
them  as  to  overthrow  a  throne.  And  what  could  the  Pontiff 
do  when  they  disobeyed  and  defied  him?  Nothing  but 
excommunicate,  excommunicate,  for  which  they  cared  not  a 
straw  —  or  depose,  which  was  equally  unimportant,  when, 
as  happened  in  the  case  of  Mainz,  the  burghers  of  the 
cathedral  city  vowed  that  the  substituted  bishop  should 
never  enter  their  gates. 

Thus  the  ten  years'  struggle  produced  nothing  but  humil- 
iation for  Innocent.  The  Pope  did  not  relax  in  his  deter- 
mined opposition,  nor  cease  to  threaten  penalties  which  he 
could  not  inflict  until  nearly  the  end  of  the  struggle  5  and 
then  when  the  logic  of  events  began,  it  would  appear,  to  have 
a  little  effect  upon  his  mind,  and  he  extended  with  reluc- 
tance a  sort  of  feeble  olive-branch  towards  the  all-victorious 
Philip  —  a  larger  fate  came  in,  and  changed  everything  with 
the  sweeping  fulness  of  irresistible  power.  It  is  not  said 
anywhere,  so  far  as  we  know,  that  the  overtures  of  Innocent 
brought  the  Emperor  ill-luck;  but  it  would  certainly  have 
been  so  said  had  such  an  accident  occurred  under  Pio  Nono, 


336  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP, 

for  example,  who,  it  is  well  known,  had  the  evil  eye.  For 
no  sooner  had  Innocent  taken  this  step  than  Philip's  life 
came  to  a  disastrous  end.  The  Count  Palatine  of  Wittels- 
bach,  a  great  potentate  of  Germany,  who  had  some  personal 
grievance  to  avenge,  demanded  a  private  audience  and  mur- 
dered him  in  his  temporary  dwelling,  in  the  moment  of  his 
highest  prosperity.  Thus  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  every- 
thing was  changed.  The  House  of  Hohenstaufen  went 
down  in  a  moment  without  an  attempt  made  to  prop  it  up. 
And  Otho,  who  was  at  hand,  already  a  crowned  king,  and 
demanding  no  further  trouble,  at  once  took  the  vacant  place. 
This  occurred  in  the  year  1208  —  ten  years  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the  struggle,  But  in  this  extraordinary  and  sudden 
transformation  of  affairs  Innocent  counted  for  nothing;  he 
had  not  done  it  nor  even  contributed  to  the  doing  of  it: 
though  he  had  kept  the  air  thunderous  with  anathemas,  and 
•the  roads  dusty  with  the  coming  and  going  of  his  legates 
for  all  these  unhappy  years. 

Otho,  however,  did  not  at  first  forget  the  devotion  which 
the  Pope  had  shown  him  in  his  evil  days,  when  triumph  so 
unexpected  and  accidental  (as  it  seemed)  came  to  him. 
After  taking  full  possession  of  the  position  which  now 
there  was  no  one  to  contest  with  him,  he  made  a  triumphal 
progress  across  the  Alps,  and  was  crowned  Emperor  at 
Rome,  the  last  and  crowning  dignity  which  Philip  had 
never  been  able  to  attain :  where  he  behaved  himself  with 
much  show  of  affection  and  humility  to  Innocent,  whose 
stirrup  he  held  like  the  most  devoted  son  of  the  Church  as 
he  professed  to  be.  There  was  much  swearing  of  oaths  at 
the  same  time.  Otho  vowed  to  preserve  all  the  rights  of 
the  Church,  and,  with  reservations,  to  restore  the  Tuscan 
fiefs  of  Matilda,  and  all  the  presents  with  which  from  time 
to  time  the  former  Emperors  had  endowed  the  Holy  See, 
to  the  Pope's  undisturbed  possession.  Eome  was  a  scene 
of  the  utmost  display  and  splendour  during  this  imperial 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  337 

visit.  Otho  had  come  at  the  head  of  his  army,  and  lay 
encamped  at  the  foot  of  Monte  Mario,  where  now  the  little 
group  of  pines  stand  up  against  the  sky  in  the  west,  dark 
against  the  setting  sun.  It  was  October  when  all  the  sum- 
mer glow  and  heat  is  mellowed  by  autumnal  airs,  and  the 
white  tents  shone  outside  the  city  gates  with  every  kind  of 
splendid  cognisance  of  princes  and  noble  houses,  and  mag- 
nificence of  mediseval  luxury.  The  ancient  St.  Peter's, 
near  the  camp,  was  then  planted,  we  are  told,  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  number  of  convents,  churches,  and  chapels,  "  Like 
a  majestic  mother  surrounded  by  beautiful  daughters  "  — 
though  there  was  no  Vatican  as  yet  to  add  to  its  greatness : 
but  the  line  of  the  walls  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river 
and  the  ancient  splendour  of  Rome,  more  square  and  mas- 
sive in  its  lingering  classicism  than  the  mediseval  towns  to 
which  the  German  forces  were  more  accustomed,  shone  in 
the  mid-day  sun :  while  towards  the  left  the  great  round  of 
St.  Angelo  dominated  the  bridge  and  the  river,  and  all  the 
crowds  which  poured  forth  towards  the  great  church  and 
shrine  of  the  Apostles.  There  was,  however,  one  shadow 
in  this  brilliant  picture,  and  that  was  the  fact  that  Kome 
within  her  gates  lay  not  much  unlike  a  couching  lion,  half 
terrified,  half  excited  by  the  army  outside,  and  not  sure 
that  the  abhorred  Tedeschi  might  not  at  any  moment  steal 
a  march  upon  her,  and  show  underneath  those  splendid  vel- 
vet gloves,  all  heavy  with  embroideries  of  gold,  the  claws 
of  that  northern  wolf  which  Italy  had  so  often  felt  at  her 
very  heart.  It  is  a  curious  sign  of  this  state  of  agitated 
feeling  that  Otho  published  in  Kome  before  his  coronation 
a  solemn  engagement  in  his  own  name  and  that  of  his  army 
that  no  harm  should  be  done  to  the  city,  to  the  Pope  and 
Cardinals,  or  to  the  people  and  their  property,  while  he 
remained  there.  He  had  strong  guards  of  honour  at  all  the 
adjacent  gates  as  a  precautionary  measure  while  the  great 
ceremonies  of  his  consecration  went  on. 


338  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

It  was  not  the  present  St.  Peter's,  it  need  not  be  said, 
which,  hung  with  splendid  tapestries  and  lit  with  innumer- 
able candles,  glistening  with  precious  marbles  and  gilding, 
and  decorated  with  all  the  splendour  of  the  church  in  silver 
and  gold,  received  this  great  German  potentate  for  that 
final  act  which  was  to  make  his  authority  sacred,  and  estab- 
lish him  beyond  all  question  Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  a  dignity  which  only  the  Pope  could  complete, 
which  was  nothing,  bringing  no  additional  dominion  with 
it,  yet  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  estimation  of  the 
world.  It  cannot  but  have  been  that  a  sense  of  elation, 
perhaps  chequered  with  doubt,  but  certainly  sanctioned  by 
many  noble  feelings  —  convictions  that  God  had  favoured 
his  side  in  the  long  run,  and  that  a  better  age  was  about  to 
begin  —  must  have  been  in  Innocent's  mind  as  he  went 
through  the  various  ceremonies  of  the  imposing  ritual,  and 
received  the  vows  of  the  monarch  and  placed  the  imperial 
crown  on  his  head.  We  are  not  told,  however,  whether 
there  was  any  alarm  in  the  air  as  the  two  gorgeous  proces- 
sions conjoined,  sweeping  forth  from  the  gates  of  St. 
Peter's,  and  across  the  bridge  and  by  all  the  crowded  ways, 
to  the  other  side  of  the  city,  to  the  Lateran  palace,  where 
the  great  banquet  was  held.  Otho  with  his  crown  on  his 
head  held  the  stirrup  of  the  Pope  at  the  great  steps  of  St. 
Peter's  as  Innocent  mounted;  and  the  two  greatest  poten- 
tates of  earth,  the  head  of  the  secular  and  the  head  of  the 
spiritual,  dividing,  with  the  most  confusing  elasticity  of 
boundary  between  them,  the  sway  of  the  world,  rode  alone 
together,  followed  by  all  that  was  most  magnificent  in  Ger- 
many and  Italy,  the  great  princes,  the  great  prelates  vying 
with  each  other  in  pomp  and  splendour.  The  air  was  full 
of  the  ringing  of  bells  and  the  chanting  of  the  priests ;  and 
as  they  went  along  through  the  dark  masses  of  the  people 
on  every  side,  the  officers  of  Otho  scattered  largesse  through 
all  the  crowded  streets,  and  everything  was  festivity  and 
general  joy. 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  339 

But  when  the  great  people  disappeared  into  the  papal 
palace,  and  the  banquet  was  spread,  the  German  men-at- 
arms  began  to  swagger  about  the  streets  as  if  they  were 
masters  of  all  they  surveyed.  There  is  no  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  brutality  and  insolence  of  the  German 
soldiers  in  those  days,  and  the  Eomans  were  excited  and 
in  no  humour  to  accept  any  insult  at  such  a  moment.  How 
they  came  to  blows  at  last  was  never  discovered,  but  after 
the  great  spectacle  was  over,  most  probably  when  night 
was  coming  on,  and  the  excitement  of  the  day  had  risen  to 
irritability  and  ready  passion,  a  fray  arose  in  the  streets 
no  one  knowing  how.  The  strangers  had  the  worst  of  it, 
Muratori  says.  "  Many  of  the  Teutons  were  killed,"  says 
one  of  the  older  chronicles,  "  and  eleven  hundred  horses ;  " 
which  would  seem  to  imply  that  the  dregs  of  the  procession 
had  been  vapouring  about  Eome  on  their  charges,  riding 
the  inhabitants  down.  Nor  was  it  only  men-at-arms  :  for  a 
number  of  Otho's  more  distinguished  followers  were  killed 
in  the  streets.  How  long  it  was  before  it  came  to  the  ears 
of  the  Emperor  we  are  not  informed,  nor  whether  the  ban- 
quet was  interrupted.  Probably  Otho  had  returned  to  his 
tent  (Muratori  says  he  did  so  at  once,  leaving  out  all  men- 
tion of  any  banquet)  before  the  "  calda  baruffa  "  broke  out : 
but  at  all  events  it  was  a  startling  change  of  scene.  The 
Emperor  struck  his  tents  next  morning,  and  departed  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  Eome  in  great  rage  and  indignation: 
—  and  this,  so  far  as  Pope  Innocent  was  concerned,  was  the 
last  good  that  was  ever  heard  of  Otho.  He  broke  all  his 
vows  one  by  one,  took  back  the  Tuscan  States,  seized  the 
duchy  of  Spoleto  and  every  city  he  passed  on  his  way,  and 
defied  the  Pope,  to  whom  he  had  been  so  servile,  having 
now  got  all  from  him  that  Innocent  could  give. 

The  plea  by  which  Otho  defended  himself  for  his  seizure 
of  the  States  of  Tuscany  was  worthy  of  that  scholastic  age. 
He  had  vowed,  he  said,  it  was  true,  to  preserve  St.  Peter's 


340  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

patrimony  and  all  the  ecclesiastical  possessions  :  but  he  had 
vowed  at  the  same  time  to  preserve  and  to  recover  all  impe- 
rial rights  and  possessions,  and  it  was  in  discharge  of  this 
obligation  that  he  robbed  the  Pope.  Thus  ended  Innocent's 
long  and  faithful  support  of  Otho ;  he  had  pledged  the  faith 
of  heaven  for  his  success,  which  was  assured  only  by  acci- 
dent and  crime ;  but  no  sooner  had  that  success  been  secured, 
than  the  Emperor  deserted  and  betrayed  the  Pope  who  had 
so  firmly  stood  by  him.  It  is  said  that  Innocent  redoubled 
from  that  moment  his  care  of  the  young  Frederic,  the  King 
of  Sicily,  the  head  of  the  Hohenstaufen  house  and  party,  and 
prepared  him  to  revenge  Otho's  broken  oaths  by  a  downfall 
as  complete  as  his  elevation  had  been ;  but  this  is  an  assump- 
tion which  has  no  more  proof  than  any  other  uncharitable 
judgment  of  motives  unrevealed.  At  all  events  it  is  very 
apparent  that  in  this  long  conflict,  which  occupied  so  much 
of  his  life,  the  Pope  played  no  powerful  or  triumphant  part. 
In  France  the  action  of  Innocent  was  more  successful. 
The  story  of  Philip  Augustus  and  his  wives,  which  is  full 
of  romantic  incidents,  is  better  known  to  the  general  reader 
than  the  tragedy  of  the  Emperors.  Philip  Augustus  had 
married  a  wife,  a  Danish  princess,  who  did  not  please  him. 
Her  story,  in  its  first  chapter  at  least,  is  like  that  of  Anne 
of  Cleves,  the  fortunate  princess  who  had  the  good  luck  not 
to  please  Henry  VIII.  (or  perhaps  still  more  completely 
resembles  a  comparatively  recent  catastrophe  in  our  own 
royal  house,  the  relations  of  George  IV.  and  his  unlucky 
wife).  But  the  French  king  did  not  treat  Ingelburga  with 
the  same  politeness  which  Henry  Tudor  exhibited,  neither 
had  she  the  discretion  to  hold  her  tongue  like  the  lady  of 
Flanders.  The  complaints  of  the  injured  queen  filled  the 
world,  and  she  made  a  direct  appeal  to  the  Pope,  who  was 
not  slow  to  reply.  When  Philip  procured  a  divorce  from 
his  wife  from  the  complacent  bishops  of  his  own  kingdom 
on  one  of  those  absurd  allegations  of  too  close  relationship 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  341 

(it  might  be  that  of  third  or  fourth  cousin),  which  were  of 
so  much  use  to  discontented  husbands  of  sufficient  rank,  and 
married  the  beautiful  Agnes  of  Meran,  with  whom  he  was 
in  love,  Innocent  at  once  interfered.  He  began  by  com- 
mands, by  entreaties,  by  attempts  at  settling  the  question  by 
legal  measures,  commissioning  his  legates  to  hold  a  solemn 
inquiry  into  the  matter,  examining  into  Ingelburga's  com- 
plaints, and  using  every  endeavour  to  bring  the  king  back  to 
a  sense  of  his  duty.  There  could  be  no  doubt  on  which  side 
justice  lay,  and  the  legates  were  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Henry 
and  Catherine,  on  the  side  of  the  monarch.  It  was  the  re- 
jected queen  who  had  the  Pope's  protection  and  not  her 
powerful  husband. 

Philip  Augustus,  however,  was  summoned  in  vain  to  obey. 
The  litigation  and  the  appeals  went  on  for  a  long  time,  and 
several  years  elapsed  before  Innocent,  after  much  prepa- 
ration and  many  warnings,  determined  not  merely  as  on 
former  occasions  to  excommunicate  the  offender,  but  to  pro- 
nounce an  interdict  upon  the  kingdom.  Perhaps  Innocent 
had  learned  the  lesson  which  had  been  taught  him  on  such 
a  great  scale,  that  excommunication  was  not  a  fortunate 
weapon,  and  that  only  the  perfect  subordination  of  the 
higher  clergy  could  make  it  successful  at  all.  The  interdict 
was  a  much  greater  and  more  dreadful  thing;  it  was  de- 
pendent not  upon  the  obedience  of  a  great  prelate,  but  upon 
every  priest  who  had  taken  the  sacred  vows.  Had  he  ex- 
communicated the  king  as  011  former  occasions,  no  doubt 
there  would  always  have  been  some  lawless  bishop  in  France 
who  would  have  enabled  his  sovereign  to  laugh  at  the  Pope 
and  his  sentence.  But  an  interdict  could  not  thus  be  evaded, 
the  mass  of  the  clergy  being  obedient  to  the  Pope  whatever 
important  individual  exceptions  there  might  be.  The  inter- 
dict was  proclaimed  accordingly  with  all  the  accessories 
of  ritualistic  solemnity.  After  a  Council  which  had  lasted 
seven  days,  and  which  was  attended  by  a  great  number  of 


342  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN    ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  clergy,  the  bells  of  the  cathedral  —  it  was  that  of  Dijon 
—  began  to  toll  as  for  a  dying  man :  and  all  the  great  bishops 
with  their  trains,  and  the  legate  at  their  head,  went  solemnly 
from  their  council  chamber  to  the  church.  It  was  midnight, 
and  the  long  procession  went  through  the  streets  and  into 
the  great  cathedral  by  the  wavering  and  gloomy  light  of 
torches.  For  the  last  time  divine  service  was  celebrated, 
and  the  canons  sang  the  Kyrie  Eleison  amid  the  silence, 
faintly  broken  by  sobs  and  sounds  of  weeping,  of  the  im- 
mense crowds  who  had  followed  them.  The  images  of 
Christ  and  the  saints  were  covered  with  crape,  the  relics  of 
the  saints,  worshipped  in  those  days  with  such  strange  de- 
votion, were  solemnly  taken  away  out  of  the  shrines  and 
consecrated  places  to  vaults  and  crypts  underground  where 
they  were  deposited  until  better  times ;  the  remains  of  the 
consecrated  bread  which  had  sustained  the  miracle  of  tran- 
substantiation  were  burned  upon  the  altar.  All  these  details 
of  the  awful  act  of  cutting  off  France  from  the  community 
of  the  faithful  were  performed  before  a  trembling  and  dis- 
mayed crowd,  which  looked  on  with  a  sense  of  the  serious- 
ness of  the  proceedings  which  was  overwhelming. 

"Then  the  legate,  dressed  in  a  violet  stole,  as  on  the  day  of  the 
passion  of  our  Lord,  advanced  to  the  altar  steps,  and  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  pronounced  the  interdict  upon  all  the  realm  of  France. 
Sobs  and  groans  echoed  through  the  great  aisles  of  the  cathedral ;  it 
was  as  if  the  day  of  judgment  had  come." 

Once  more  after  this  tremendous  scene  there  was  a  breath- 
ing space,  a  place  of  repentance  left  for  the  royal  sinner,  and 
then  through  all  the  churches  of  France  the  midnight  cere- 
monial was  repeated.  The  voice  of  prayer  was  silenced  in 
the  land,  no  more  was  psalin  sung  or  mass  said ;  a  few  con- 
vents were  permitted  by  special  grace,  in  the  night,  with 
closed  doors  and  whispering  voices,  to  celebrate  the  holy 
mysteries.  For  all  besides  the  public  worship  of  God  and 
all  the  consolations  of  religion  were  cut  off.  We  have  seen 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  343 

how  lightly  personal  excommunication  was  treated  in  Ger- 
many ;  but  before  so  terrible  a  chastisement  as  this  no  king 
could  hold  out.  Neither  was  the  cause  one  of  disobedience 
to  the  Holy  See,  or  usurpation  of  the  Church's  lands,  or  any 
other  offence  against  ecclesiastical  supremacy :  it  was  one 
into  which  every  peasant,  every  clown  could  enter,  and  which 
revolted  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation.  Matrimonial  infidel- 
ities of  all  kinds  have  always  been  winked  at  in  a  monarch, 
but  the  strong  step  of  putting  away  a  guiltless  queen  and 
setting  another  in  her  place  is  a  different  matter.  The 
nation  was  on  the  side  of  the  Church  :  the  clergy,  except  in 
very  rare  cases,  were  unanimous :  and  for  once  Innocent  in 
his  severity  and  supremacy  was  successful.  After  seven 
months  of  this  terrible  regime  the  king  yielded.  It  had  been 
a  time  of  threatening  rebellion,  of  feuds  and  dissensions  of 
all  kinds,  of  diminished  revenues  and  failing  prosperity. 
Philip  Augustus  could  not  stand  against  these  consequences. 
He  sent  away  the  fictitious  wife  whom  he  loved  —  and  who 
died,  as  the  world,  and  even  history  at  its  sternest,  loves  to 
believe,  of  a  broken  heart,  the  one  victim  whom  no  one  could 
save,  a  short  time  after  —  and  the  interdict  was  removed. 
One  is  almost  glad  to  hear  that  even  then  the  king  would 
have  none  of  Ingelburga,  the  woman  who  had  filled  the 
world  with  her  cries  and  complaints,  and  brought  this  tre- 
mendous anathema  on  France.  She  continued  to  cry  and 
appeal  to  the  Pope  that  her  captivity  was  unchanged  or 
even  made  harder  than  ever,  but  Innocent  was  too  wise  to 
risk  his  great  expedient  a  second  time.  He  piously  advised 
her  to  have  recourse  to  prayer  and  to  have  confidence  in 
God,  and  promised  not  to  abandon  her.  But  the  poor  lady 
gained  little  by  all  the  misery  that  had  been  inflicted  to 
right  her  wrongs.  Many  years  after,  when  no  one  thought 
any  more  of  Ingelburga,  the  king  suddenly  took  her  out  of 
her  prison  and  restored  her  to  her  share,  such  as  it  was,  of 
the  throne,  for  what  reason  no  man. can  tell. 


344  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

This,  however,  was  the  only  great  success  of  Innocent  in 
the  exercise  of  his  papal  power.  It  was  an  honourable  and 
a  just  employment  of  that  power,  very  different  from  the 
claim  to  decide  between  contending  Emperors,  or  to  nomi- 
nate to  the  imperial  crown ;  but  it  was  in  reality,  as  we  think, 
the  only  triumphant  achievement  of  the  Pope,  in  whom  all 
the  power  and  all  the  pretensions  of  the  papacy  are  said  to 
have  culminated.  He  had  his  hand  in  every  broil,  and  in- 
terfered with  everything  that  was  going  on  in  every  quarter. 
Space  fails  us  to  tell  of  his  endless  negotiations,  censures, 
recommendations  and  commands,  sent  by  legates  continually 
in  motion  or  by  letters  of  endless  frequency  and  force,  to 
regions  in  which  Christianity  itself  was  as  yet  scarcely  es- 
tablished. Every  little  kingdom  from  the  utmost  limits  of 
the  north  to  the  east  were  under  this  constant  supervision 
and  interference :  and  no  doubt  there  were  instances,  espe- 
cially among  the  more  recent  converts  of  the  Church,  and  in 
respect  to  ecclesiastical  matters,  in  which  it  was  highly  im- 
portant; but  so  far  as  concerned  the  general  tenor  of  the 
world's  history,  it  can  never  be  said  to  have  had  any  impor- 
tant result. 

In  England,  Innocent  had  the  evil  fortune  to  have  to  do 
with  the  worst  of  the  Plantagenet  kings,  the  false  and  cow- 
ardly John,  who  got  himself  a  little  miserable  reputation 
for  a  time  by  the  temporary  determination  of  his  resolve 
that  "  no  Italian  priest,  should  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions," 
and  who  struggled  fiercely  against  Innocent  on  the  question 
of  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury  and  other  great  ecclesi- 
astical offices,  as  well  as  in  matters  more  personal,  such  as 
the  dower  of  Berengaria,  the  widow  of  Cosur  de  Lion,  which 
the  Pope  had  called  upon  him  to  pay.  John  drove  the 
greater  part  of  the  clergy  out  of  England  in  his  fury  at  the 
interdict  which  Innocent  pronounced,  and  took  possession, 
glad  of  an  occasion  of  acquiring  so  much  wealth,  of  the 
estates  and  properties  of  the  Church  throughout  the  realm. 


iv.]  INNOCENT   III.  345 

But  the  interdict  which  had  been  so  efficacious  in  France 
failed  altogether  of  its  effect  in  England.  It  was  too  early 
for  any  Protestant  sentiment,  and  it  is  extraordinary  that  a 
people  by  no  means  without  piety  should  have  shown  so 
singular  an  indifference  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church. 
Perhaps  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the  superior  clergy  were 
of  the  conquering  Norman  race,  and,  therefore,  still  sullenly 
resisted  by  the  passive  obstinacy  of  the  humiliated  Saxons, 
had  something  to  do  with  it :  while  at  the  same  time  the 
banishment  of  many  prelates  would  probably  leave  a  large 
portion  of  the  humbler  priests  in  comparative  ignorance  of 
the  Pope's  decree. 

But  whatever  were  the  operative  causes  this  is  plain,  that 
whereas  in  France  the  effect  of  the  interdict  was  tremendous 
in  England  it  produced  scarcely  any  result  at  all.  The 
banished  bishops  and  archbishops,  and  at  their  head  Stephen 
Langton,  the  patriotic  Englishman  of  whom  the  Pope  had 
made  wise  choice  for  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury,  stood 
on  the  opposite  shore  in  consternation,  and  watched  the  con- 
tempt of  their  flocks  for  th'is  greatest  exercise  of  the.  power 
of  Rome ;  and  with  still  greater  amazement  perceived  the 
success  that  followed  the  king  in  his  enterprises,  and  the 
obedience  of  the  people,  with  whom  he  had  never  been  so 
popular  before. 

We  are  not  told  what  Innocent  felt  at  the  sight  of  this 
unexpected  failure.  He  proceeded  to  strike  King  John  with 
special  excommunication,  going  from  the  greater  to  the 
smaller  curse,  in  a  reversal  of  the  usual  method ;  but  this 
being  still  ineffectual,  Innocent  turned  to  practical  measures. 
He  proceeded  to  free  King  John's  subjects  from  their  oath 
of  allegiance  and  to  depose  the  rebellious  monarch ;  and  not 
only  so,  for  these  ordinances  would  probably  have  been  as 
little  regarded  as  the  other — but  he  gave  permission  and 
authority  to  the  King  of  France,  the  ever- watchful  enemy 
of  the  Plantagenets,  to  invade  England  and  to  place  his  son 


346  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Louis  upon  the  vacant  throne.  Great  preparations  were 
made  in  France  for  this  congenial  Crusade  —  for  it  was  in 
their  quality  as  Crusaders  that  the  Pope  authorised  the 
invasion.  Then  and  riot  till  then  John  paused  in  his  career. 
He  had  laughed  at  spiritual  dangers,  but  he  no  longer 
laughed  when  the  French  king  gathered  his  forces  at 
Boulogne,  and  the  banished  and  robbed  bishops  prepared  to 
return,  not  penitent  and  humiliated,  but  surrounded  by 
French  spears. 

Then  at  last  the  terrified  king  submitted  to  the  authority 
of  the  Pope ;  he  received  the  legates  of  Innocent  in  a 
changed  spirit,  with  the  servility  of  a  coward.  He  vowed 
with  his  hand  on  the  Gospels  to  redress  all  ecclesiastical 
wrongs,  to  restore  the  bishops,  and  to  submit  in  every  way 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Church.  Then  in  his  craven  terror, 
without,  it  is  said,  any  demand  of  the  kind  on  the  part  of  the 
ecclesiastical  ambassadors,  John  took  a  step  unparalleled 
in  the  annals  of  the  nations. 

"  In  order  to  obtain  the  mercy  of  God  for  the  sins  we  have  done 
against  His  holy  Church,  and  having  nothing  more  precious  to  offer 
than  our  person  and  our  kingdom,  and  in  order  to  humiliate  ourself 
before  Him  who  humbled  Himself  for  us  even  to  death :  by  an  inspira- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit,  neither  formed  by  violence  nor  by  fear,  but  in 
virtue  of  our  own  good  and  free  will  we  give,  with  the  consent  of  our 
barons,  to  God,  to  His  holy  apostles,  Peter  and  Paul,  to  our  mother 
the  Holy  Roman  Church,  to  our  Lord  the  Pope  Innocent  and  to  his 
Catholic  successors,  in  expiation  of  our  sins  and  those  of  our  family, 
living  and  dead,  our  kingdoms  of  England  and  Ireland  with  all  their 
accompaniments  and  rights,  in  order  that  we  may  receive  them  again 
in  the  quality  of  vassal  of  God  and  of  Holy  Church  :  in  faith  of  which 
we  take  the  oath  of  vassal,  in  the  presence  of  Pandulphus,  putting  our- 
selves at  the  disposition  of  the  Pope  and  his  successors,  as  if  we  were 
actually  in  the  presence  of  the  Pope ;  and  our  heirs  and  successors 
shall  be  obliged  to  take  the  same  oath." 

So  John  swore,  but  not  because  of  the  thunders  and 
curses  of  Innocent  —  because  of  Philip  Augustus  of  France 
hurrying  on  his  preparations  on  the  other  side  of  the  Chan- 
nel, while  angry  barons  and  a  people  worn  out  with  constant 
exactions  gave  him  promise  of  but  poor  support  at  home. 


s 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  349 

The  Pope  became  now  the  only  hope  of  the  humiliated  mon- 
arch. He  had  flouted  the  sentences  and  disdained  the  curses 
of  the  Holy  See ;  but  if  there  was  any  power  in  the  world 
which  could  restore  the  fealty  of  his  vassals,  and  stop  the 
invader  on  his  way,  it  was  Innocent :  or  so  at  least  in  this 
last  emergency  it  might  be  possible  to  hope. 

Innocent  on  his  part  did  not  despise  the  unworthy  bargain. 
Notwithstanding  his  powerful  intellect  and  just  mind,  and 
the  perception  he  must  have  had  of  the  miserable  motives 
underneath,  he  did  not  hesitate.  He  received  the  oath, 
though  he  must  have  well  known  that  it  would  be  so  much 
waste  paper  if  John  had  ever  power  to  cast  it  off.  Of  all 
men  Innocent  must  have  been  most  clearly  aware  what  was 
the  worth  of  the  oaths  of  kings.  He  accepted  it,  however, 
apparently  with  a  faith  in  the  possibility  of  establishing  the 
suzerainty  thus  bestowed  upon  him,  which  is  as  curious  as 
any  other  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  whether  flattered  by  this 
apparent  triumph  after  his  long  unsuccess,  or  believing 
against  all  evidence  —  as  men,  even  Popes,  can  always  believe 
what  they  wish  —  that  so  shameful  a  surrender  was  genuine, 
and  that  here  at  last  was  a  just  acknowledgment  of  the 
rights  of  the  Holy  See.  Henceforward  the  Pope  put  him- 
self on  John's  side.  He  risked  the  alienation  of  the  French 
king  by  forbidding  the  enterprise  which  had  been  under- 
taken at  his  command:  he  rejected  the  appeal  of  the  barons, , 
disapproved  Magna  Charta,  transferred  the  excommunica- 
tion to  its  authors  with  an  ease  which  surely  must  have 
helped  these  unlikely  penitents  to  despise  both  the  anath- 
ema and  its  source.  It  is  impossible  either  to  explain  or 
excuse  this  strange  conduct.  The  easiest  solution  is  that 
he  did  not  fully  understand  either  the  facts  or  the  characters 
of  those  with  whom  he  had  to  deal :  but  how  then  could  he  be 
considered 'fit  to  judge  and  arbitrate  between  them? 

The  death  of  John  liberated  the  Pope  from  what  might 
have  been  a  deliberate  breach  of  his  recommendations  on  the 


350  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

part  of  France.  And  altogether  in  this  part  of  his  conduct 
the  imaginary  success  of  Innocent  was  worse  than  a  defeat. 
It  was  a  failure  from  the  high  dignity  he  claimed,  more  con- 
spicuous even  than  that  failure  in  Germany  which  had 
already  proved  the  inefficacy  of  spiritual  weapons  to  affect 
the  business  of  the  world :  for  not  only  had  all  his  efforts 
failed  of  success,  until  the  rude  logic  of  a  threatened  inva- 
sion came  in  to  convince  the  mind  of  John  —  but  the  Pope 
himself  was  led  into  unworthy  acts  by  a  bargain  which  was 
in  every  way  ignoble  and  unworthy.  If  the  Church  was  to 
be  the  high  and  generous  umpire,  the  impartial  judge  of  all 
imperial  affairs  which  she  claimed  to  be  —  and  who  can  say 
that  had  mortal  powers  been  able  to  carry  it  out,  this  was 
not  a  noble  and  splendid  ideal  ?  —  it  was  not  surely  by  be- 
coming the  last  resort  against  just  punishment  of  a  traitor 
and  caitiff,  whose  oath  made  one  day  was  as  easily  revoked 
the  next,  as  the  putting  on  or  pulling  off  of  a  glove.  It  is 
almost  inconceivable  that  a  man  like  Innocent  should  have 
received  with  joy  and  with  a  semblance  of  faith  such  a  sub- 
mission on  the  part  of  such  a  man  as  John.  But  it  is  evi- 
dent that  he  did  so,  and  that  probably  the  Roman  court  and 
community  took  it  as  a  great  event  and  overwhelming  proof 
of  the  progress  of  the  authority  of  the  Church. 

But  perhaps  an  Italian  and  a  Churchman  in  these  days 
was  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  form  a  just  idea  of  what 
we  call  patriotism,  or  to  understand  the  principle  of  inde- 
pendence which  made  a  nation,  even  when  divided  within 
itself,  unite  in  fierce  opposition  to  interference  from  with- 
out. Italy  was  not  a  country,  but  a  number  of  constantly 
warring  states  and  cities,  and  to  Innocent  the  Church  was 
the  one  sole  institution  in  the  world  qualified  and  entitled  to 
legislate  for  others.  He  accepted  the  gift  of  England  almost 
with  elation,  notwithstanding  all  he  had  learned  of  that  dis- 
tant and  strange  country  which  cared  not  for  an  interdict, 
and  if  it  could  in  any  circumstances  have  loved  its  unworthy 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  351 

king,  would  have  done  so  on  account  of  his  resistance  to  the 
Pope.  And  it  would  appear  that  the  Pontiff  believed  in 
something  serious  coming  of  that  suzerainty,  all  traditions 
and  evidence  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Thus  Inno- 
cent's part  in  the  bloody  and  terrible  drama  that  was  then 
being  played  in  England  was  neither  noble  nor  dignified, 
but  a  poor  part  unworthy  of  his  character  and  genius.  His 
interference  counted  for  nothing  until  France  interfered 
with  practical  armies  which  had  to  be  reckoned  with  — 
when  the  hand  which  had  launched  so  many  ineffectual 
thunderbolts  was  gripped  at  by  an  expedient  of  cowardly 
despair  which  in  reality  meant  and  produced  nothing.  Both 
sides  were  in  their  turn  excommunicated,  given  over  to  every 
religious  penalty ;  but  unconcerned  fought  the  matter  out 
their  own  way  and  so  settled  it,  unanimous  only  in  resisting 
the  jurisdiction  of  Eome.  The  vehement  letters  of  the  Pope 
as  the  struggle  grew  more  and  more  bitter  sound  through 
the  clang  of  arms  like  the  impotent  scoldings  of  a  woman : 

"Let  women  .  .  .  war  with  wflrds, 
With  curses  priests,  "but  men  with  swords." 

Let  Pope  or  prelate  do  what  they  might,  the  cold  steel  car- 
ried the  day. 

Not  less  complete  in  failure,  through  with  a  flattering 
promise  in  it  of  prosperity  and  advantage,  was  the  great  cru- 
sade of  Innocent's  day  —  that  which  is  called  the  Venetian 
Crusade,  the  immense  expedition  which  seemed  likely  to 
produce  such  splendid  results  but  ended  so  disastrously,  and 
never  set  foot  at  all  in  the  Holy  Land  which  was  its  object. 
The  Crusades  were,  of  all  other  things,  the  dearest  object  to 
the  hearts  of  the  Popes,  small  and  great.  The  first  concep- 
tion of  them  had  risen,  as  the  reader  will  remember,  in  the 
mind  of  Gregory  VII.,  who  would  fain  have  set  out  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  first,  to  recover  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
infidel  the  sacred  soil  which  enshrined  so  many  memories. 


352  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

The  idea  had  been  pursued  by  every  worthy  Pope  between 
Hildebrand  and  Innocent,  with  fluctuations  of  success  and 
failure  —  at  first  in  noble  and  pious  triumph,  but  latterly 
with  all  the  dissensions,  jealousies,  and  internal  struggles, 
which  armies,  made  up  of  many  differing  and  antagonis- 
tic nationalities,  could  with  difficulty  avoid.  Before  Inno- 
cent's accession  to  the  papacy  there  had  been  a  great  and 
terrible  reverse,  which  was  supposed  to  have  broken  the 
heart  of  the  old  Pope  under  whom  it  occurred,  and  which 
filled  Christendom  with  horror,  woe,  and  shame.  The  sacred 
territory  for  which  so  much  blood  had  been  shed  fell  again 
entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  Saracens.  In  consequence 
of  this,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  Innocent  was  to  send  out  let- 
ters over  all  the  world,  calling  for  a  new  Crusade,  exhorting 
princes  and  priests  alike  to  use  every  means  for  the  rais- 
ing of  a  sufficient  expedition,  and  promising  every  kind  of 
spiritual  advantage,  indulgence,  and  remission  to  those  who 
took  the  cross. 

The  first  result  of  these  impassioned  appeals  was  to  fire 
the  spirits  of  certain  priests  in  France  to  preach  the  Crusade, 
with  all  the  fiery  enthusiasm  which  had  first  roused  Chris- 
tendom: and  a  very  large  expedition  was  got  together, 
chiefly  from  France,  whose  preliminary  negotiations  with 
the  doge  and  government  of  Venice  to  convey  them  to  Pales- 
tine furnishes  one  of  the  most  picturesque  scenes  in  the 
history  of  that  great  and  astute  republic.  It  was  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  opening  of  the  year 
1201,  when  the  bargain,  which  was  a  very  hard  one,  was 
made :  and  in  the  following  July  the  expedition  was  to  set 
sail.  But  when  the  pilgrims  assembled  at  Venice  it  was  found 
that  with  all  their  exertions  they  had  not  more  than  half 
the  sum  agreed  upon  as  passage  money.  Perhaps  the  Vene- 
tians had  anticipated  this  and  taken  their  measures  accord- 
ingly. At  all  events,  after  much  wrangling  and  many  delays, 
they  agreed  to  convey  the  Crusaders  on  condition  only  of 


iv.]  INNOCENT  HI.  353 

obtaining  their  assistance  to  take  the  town  of  Zara  on  the 
Dalmatian  coast,  which  had  once  been  under  Venetian  rule, 
but  which  now  belonged  to  the  King  of  Hungary,  and  was 
a  nest  of  pirates  hampering  the  trade  of  Venice  and  holding 
her  merchants  and  seamen  in  perpetual  agitation.  Whether 
Innocent  had  surmised  that  some  such  design  was  possible 
we  are  not  told,  but  if  not  his  instructions  to  the  Crusaders 
were  strangely  prophetic.  He  besought  them  on  no  account 
whatever  to  go  to  war  with  any  Christian  people.  If  their 
passage  were  opposed  by  any,  they  were  permitted  to  force 
their  way  through  that  like  any  other  obstacle,  but  even  in 
such  a  case  were  only  to  act  with  the  sanction  of  the  legate 
who  accompanied  them.  The  Pope  added  a  word  of  sor- 
rowful comment  upon  the  "  very  different  aims  "  which  so 
often  mingled  in  the  minds  of  the  Crusaders  with  that  great 
and  only  one,  the  deliverance  of  the  Holy  Land,  which  was 
the  true  object  of  their  expedition;  and  complained  sadly 
that  if  the  heads  of  the  Christian  Church  had  possessed  as 
much  power  as  they  had  goodwill,  the  power  of  Mahomet 
would  have  been  long  since  broken,  and  much  Christian 
blood  remained  unshed. 

He  could  not  have  spoken  with  more  truth  had  he  been 
prophetically  aware  of  the  issues  to  which  that  expedition 
was  to  come.  The  Crusaders  set  out,  in  1202,  covering  the 
sea  with  their  sails,  dazzling  every  fishing  boat  and  curious 
merchantman  with  reflections  from  their  shining  bucklers 
and  shields,  and  met  with  such  a  course  of  adventure  as 
never  had  befallen  any  pilgrims  of  the  Cross  before.  The 
story  is  told  in  the  most  picturesque  and  dramatic  pages  of 
Gibbon ;  and  many  a  historian  more  has  repeated  the  tale. 
They  took  Zara,  and  embroiled  themselves,  as  the  Pope  had 
feared,  with  the  Hungarians,  themselves  a  chivalrous  nation 
full  of  enthusiasm  for  the  Cross,  but  not  likely  to  allow 
themselves  to  be  invaded  with  impunity ;  then,  professedly 
in  the  cause  of  the  young  Alexis,  the  boy-king  of  the  Greek 

2  A 


354  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAR 

Empire,  went  to  Constantinople  —  which  they  took  after  a 
wonderful  siege,  and  in  which  they  found  such  booty  as 
turned  the  heads  of  the  great  penniless  lords  who  had  mort- 
gaged every  acre  and  spent  every  coin  for  the  hire  of  the 
Venetian  ships,  and  of  the  rude  soldiers  who  followed  them, 
who  had  never  possessed  a  gold  piece  probably  in  their  lives, 
and  there  found  wealth  undreamt  of  to  be  had  for  the  taking. 
There  is  no  need  for  us  to  enter  into  that  extraordinary 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Greek  Empire,  of  which  these 
hordes  of  northern  invaders,  all  Christian  as  they  were,  and 
with  so  different  an  object  to  start  with,  possessed  them- 
selves —  with  no  less  cruelty  and  as  great  rapacity  as  was 
shown  by  the  barbarians  of  an  elder  age  in  the  sack  and 
destruction  of  Borne. 

Meantime  the  Pope  did  not  cease  to  protest  against  this 
turning  aside  of  the  expedition  from  its  lawful  object.  The 
legate  had  forbidden  the  assault  of  Zara,  but  in  vain ;  the 
Pope  forbade  the  attack  upon  Constantinople  also  in  vain, 
and  vainly  pressed  upon  the  Crusaders,  by  every  argument, 
the  necessity  of  proceeding  to  the  Holy  Land  without  delay. 
Innocent,  it  is  true,  did  not  refuse  his  share  of  the  splendid 
stuffs  and  ornaments  which  fell  into  their  hands,  for  ecclesi- 
astical uses  :  and  he  was  silenced  by  the  fictitious  submission 
of  the  Greek  Church,  and  the  supposed  healing  of  the  schism 
which  had  rent  the  East  and  the  West  from  each  other. 
Nevertheless  he  looked  on  upon  the  progress  of  affairs  in 
Constantinople  with  unquiet  eyes.  But  what  could  the  Pope 
do  in  his  distant  seat,  armed  with  those  spiritual  powers 
alone  which  even  at  home  these  fierce  warriors  held  so 
lightly,  against  the  rage  of  acquisition,  the  excitement  of  con- 
quest, even  the  sweep  and  current  of  affairs,  which  carried 
the  chiefs  of  the  armies  in  the  East  so  much  further  and  in 
so  changed  a  direction  from  that  which  even  they  themselves 
desired  ?  He  entreated,  he  commanded,  he  threatened  :  but 
when  all  was  said  he  was  but  the  Pope,  far  off  and  power- 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  355 

less,  who  could  excommunicate  indeed,  but  do  no  more.  The 
only  thing  possible  for  Innocent  was  to  look  on,  sometimes 
with  a  gleam  of  high  hope  as  when  the  Greek  Church  came 
over  to  him,  as  appeared,  to  be  received  again  into  full 
communion  with  the  rest  of  Christendom :  sometimes  with 
a  half  unwilling  pleasure  as  when  Baldwin's  presents  arrived, 
cloth  of  gold  and  wonderful  embroideries  to  decorate  the 
great  arches  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Lateran :  and  again  with 
a  more  substantial  confidence  when  Constantinople  itself 
had  become  a  Latin  empire  under  the  same  Baldwin  —  that 
it  might  henceforward  become  a  basis  of  operations  in  the 
holy  war  against  the  Saracens  and  promote  the  objects  of 
the  Crusade  more  effectually  than  could  be  done  from  a 
distance.  Amid  all  his  disappointments  and  the  impatient 
sense  of  futility  and  helplessness  which  must  have  many  a 
time  invaded  his  soul,  it  is  comfortable  to  know  that  Inno- 
cent died  in  this  last  belief,  and  never  found  out  how  equally 
futile  it  was. 

There  was,  however,  one  other  great  undertaking  of  his 
time  in  which  it  would  seem  that  the  Pontiff  was  more 
directly  influential,  even  though,  for  any  reader  who  re- 
spects the  character  and  ideal  of  Innocent,  it  is  sickening 
to  the  heart  to  realise  what  it  was.  It  was  that  other 
Crusade,  so  miserable  and  so  bloody,  against  the  Albi- 
genses,  which  was  the  only  successful  enterprise  which 
with  any  show  of  justice  could  be  set  down  to  the  account 
of  the  Church.  Nobody  seems  even  now  to  know  very 
well  what  the  heresies  were,  against  which,  in  the  failure 
of  other  schemes,  the  arms  of  the  defenders  of  religion 
were  directed.  They  were,  as  Dissent  generally  is,  mani- 
fold, while  the  Church  regarded  them  as  one.  Among  them 
were  humble  little  sects  who  desired  only  to  lead  a  purer 
and  truer  life  than  the  rude  religionists  among  whom  they 
dwelt;  while  there  were  also  others  who  held  in  various 
strange  formulas  all  kinds  of  wild  doctrine :  but  between 


356  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  the  Scripture-Readers  whose  aim  was 
to  serve  God  in  humility,  apart  from  all  pomps  of  religion 
and  splendour  of  hierarchies  —  and  the  strange  Manichean 
sects  with  their  elaborate  and  confused  philosophical  doc- 
trine —  the  thirteenth  century  knew  no  difference.  It  ranked 
them  all  under  the  same  name  of  heretic,  and  attributed  to 
all  of  them  the  errors  of  the  worst  and  smallest  section. 
Even  so  late  as  the  eighteenth  century,  Muratori,  a  scholar 
without  prejudice,  makes  one  sweeping  assertion  that  they 
were  Manicheans,  without  a  doubt  or  question.  It  is  need- 
less to  say  that  whatever  they  were,  fire  and  sword  was  not 
the  way  to  mend  them  of  their  errors;  for  that  also  was  an 
idea  wholly  beyond  the  understanding  of  the  time. 

When  Innocent  came  first  to  the  Papacy  his  keen  per- 
ception of  the  many  vices  of  the  Church  was  increased  by 
a  conviction  that  error  of  doctrine  accompanied  in  certain 
portions  of  Christendom  the  general  corruption  of  life.  In 
some  of  his  letters  he  comments  severely,  always  with  a 
reference  to  the  special  evils  against  which  he  struggled, 
on  the  causes  and  widening  propagation  of  heresy.  "If 
the  shepherd  is  a  hireling,"  he  says,  "  and  thinks  not  of  the 
flock,  but  solely  of  himself :  if  he  cares  only  for  the  wool 
and  the  milk,  without  defending  them  from  the  wolves  that 
attack  them,  or  making  himself  a  wall  of  defence  against 
their  enemies :  and  if  he  takes  flight  at  the  first  sound  of 
danger :  the  ruin  and  loss  must  be  laid  to  his  charge.  The 
keeper  of  the  sheep  must  not  be  like  a  dumb  dog  that 
cannot  bark.  When  the  priesthood  show  that  they  do  not 
know  how  to  separate  holy  things  from  common,  they 
resemble  those  vile  wine-sellers  who  mingle  water  with 
their  wine.  The  name  of  God  is  blasphemed  because  of 
those  who  love  money,  who  seek  presents,  who  justify  the 
wicked  by  allowing  themselves  to  be  corrupted  by  them. 
The  vigilance  of  the  ministers  of  religion  can  do  much  to 
arrest  the  progress  of  evil.  The  league  of  heretics  should 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  357 

be  dissolved  by  faithful  instruction:  for  the  Lord  desires 
not  the  death  of  a  sinner,  but  rather  that  he  should  be  con- 
verted and  live." 

It  may  be  curious  also  to  quote  here  the  cautious  utter- 
ance of  Innocent  upon  the  pretension  of  the  more  pious 
sectarians  to  found  everything  on  Scripture  and  to  make 
the  study  of  the  Bible  their  chief  distinction.  The  same 
arguments  are  still  used  in  the  Catholic  Church,  sometimes 
even  in  the  same  terms. 

"The  desire  to  know  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  to  profit  by  their 
teaching  is  praiseworthy,  but  this  desire  must  not  be  satisfied  in  secret, 
nor  should  it  degenerate  into  the  wish  to  preach,  or  to  despise  the  min- 
isters of  religion.  It  is  not  the  will  of  God  that  His  word  should  be 
proclaimed  in  secret  places  as  is  done  by  these  heretics,  but  publicly 
in  the  Church.  The  mysteries  of  the  faith  cannot  be  explained  by 
every  comer,  for  not  every  intellect  is  capable  of  understanding  them. 
The  Holy  Scriptures  are  so  profound  that  not  only  the  simple  and 
ignorant  but  even  intelligent  and  learned  men  are  unqualified  to  inter- 
pret them." 

At  no  time  however,  though  he  spoke  so  mildly  and  so 
candidly,  acknowledging  that  the  best  way  to  overcome  the 
heretics  was  to  convert  and  to  convince  them,  did  Innocent 
conceal  his  intention  and  desire  to  carry  proceedings  against 
them  to  the  sternest  of  conclusions.  If  it  were  possible 
by  any  exertions  to  bring  them  back  to  the  bosom  of  the 
Church,  he  charged  all  ecclesiastical  authorities,  all  preach- 
ers, priests,  and  monastic  establishments  to  do  everything 
that  was  possible  to  accomplish  this  great  work ;  but  failing 
that,  he  called  upon  all  princes,  lords,  and  civil  rulers  to 
take  stringent  measures  and  cut  them  off  from  the  land  — 
recommendations  that  ended  in  the  tremendous  and  appall- 
ing expedient  of  a  new  Crusade,  a  Crusade  with  no  double 
motive,  no  object  of  restoration  and  deliverance  combined 
with  that  of  destruction,  but  bound  to  the  sole  agency  of 
sheer  massacre,  bloodshed,  and  ruin,  an  internecine  warfare 
of  the  most  horrible  kind. 

It  must  be  added,  however,  that  the  preachers  who  at 


358  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Innocent's  command  set  out,  more  or  less  in  state,  high  offi- 
cials, ecclesiastics  of  name  and  rank,  to  convince  the  heretics, 
by  their  preaching  and  teaching,  took  the  first  part  in  the 
conflict.  According  to  his  lights  he  spared  no  pains  to  give 
the  doomed  sects  the  opportunity  of  conversion,  though  with 
very  little  success.  Among  his  envoys  were  two  Spaniards, 
one  a  bishop,  one  that  great  Dominic,  the  founder  of  the 
Dominican  order,  who  filled  so  great  a  part  in  the  history 
of  his  time.  Amid  the  ineffectual  legates  these  two  were 
missionaries  born :  they  represented  to  the  other  preachers 
that  demonstrations  against  heresy  in  the  cathedrals  was  no 
way  of  reaching  the  people,  but  that  the  true  evangelists 
must  go  forth  into  the  country,  humble  and  poor  as  were 
the  adversaries  whom  they  had  to  overcome.  They  them- 
selves set  out  on  their  mission  barefoot,  without  scrip  or 
purse,  after  the  manner  of  the  Apostles.  Strange  to  think 
that  it  was  in  Provence,  the  country  of  the  Troubadours, 
the  land  of  song,  where  poetry  and  love  were  supreme  ac- 
cording to  all  and  every  tradition  of  history,  that  the  grim- 
mest heresy  abounded,  and  that  this  stern  pair  carried  on 
their  mission !  but  so  it  was.  Toulouse,  where  Courts  of 
Love  sate  yearly,  and  the  trouveres  held  their  tournaments 
of  song,  was  the  centre  of  the  tragedy.  But  not  even  those 
devoted  preachers,  nor  the  crowd  of  eager  priests  and  monks 
who  followed  in  their  steps,  succeeded  in  their  mission. 
The  priesthood  and  the  religion  it  taught  had  fallen  very 
low  in  Provence,  and  no  one  heeded  the  new  missionaries, 
neither  the  heretics  nor  the  heedless  population  around. 

No  doubt  the  Pope,  the  man  of  so  many  disappointments, 
had  set  his  heart  on  this  as  a  thing  in  which  for  once  he 
must  not  fail,  and  watched  with  a  sore  and  angry  heart  the 
unsuccess  of  all  these  legitimate  efforts.  But  it  was  not 
until  one  of  the  legates,  a  man  most  trusted  and  honoured, 
Pierre  de  Castelnau,  was  treacherously  killed  in  the  midst 
of  his  mission,  that  Innocent  was  fully  roused.  Heretofore 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  359 

he  had  rained  excommunications  over  all  the  world,  and  his 
curses  had  come  back  to  him  without  avail.  But  on  this 
occasion  at  least  he  had  a  sure  weapon  in  hand.  The  Pope 
proclaimed  a  Crusade  against  the  heretics.  He  proclaimed 
throughout  Europe  that  whoever  undertook  this  holy  enter- 
prise it  should  be  counted  to  him  as  if  he  had  fought  for 
Jerusalem :  all  the  indulgences,  blessings,  hopes  for  heaven 
and  exemptions  for  earth,  which  had  been  promised  to  those 
who  were  to  deliver  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  were  equally  be- 
stowed on  those  who  went  no  further  than  the  south  of 
France,  one  of  the  richest  districts  in  Christendom,  where 
fair  lands  and  noble  castles  were  to  be  had  for  the  conquest 
without  risking  a  stormy  voyage  or  a  dangerous  climate.  The 
goods  of  unrepentant  heretics  were  confiscated,  and  every 
one  was  free  to  help  himself  as  if  they  had  been  Turks  and 
infidels.  In  none  of  his  undertakings  was  the  Pope  so  hotly 
in  earnest.  There  is  something  of  the  shrillness  of  a  man 
who  has  found  himself  impotent  in  many  undertakings  in 
the  passion  which  Innocent  throws  into  this.  "  Bise,  soldier 
of  Christ ! "  he  cries  to  the  king  of  France ;  "  up,  most 
Christian  prince !  The  groans  of  the  Church  rise  to  your 
ears,  the  blood  of  the  just  cries  out :  up,  then,  and  judge 
my  cause :  gird  on  your  sword ;  think  of  the  unity  of  the 
cross  and  the  altar,  that  unity  taught  us  by  Moses,  by  Peter, 
by  all  the  fathers.  Let  not  the  bark  of  the  Church  make 
shipwreck.  Up,  for  her  help  !  Strike  strongly  against  the 
heretics,  who  are  more  dangerous  than  the  Saracens !  " 

The  appeal  came  to  a  host  of  eager  ears.  Many  good 
and  true  men  were  no  doubt  among  the  army  which  gath- 
ered upon  the  gentle  hill  of  Hyeres  in  the  blazing  midsum- 
mer of  the  year  1209,  cross  on  breast  and  sword  in  hand, 
sworn  to  exterminate  heresy,  and  bring  back  the  country  to 
the  sway  of  the  true  religion;  but  an  overwhelming  num- 
ber besides,  who  were  hungry  for  booty  however  obtained^ 
and  eager  to  win  advancement  for  themselves,  filled  up  the 


360  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

ranks.  Such  motives  were  not  absent  even  from  the  bosom 
of  Simon  de  Montfort,  their  general,  otherwise  a  good  man 
and  true.  The  sovereignty  of  Toulouse  glimmered  before 
him  over  seas  of  blood,  which  was  as  the  blood  of  the  Sara- 
cen, no  better,  though  it  flowed  in  the  veins  of  Frenchmen ; 
but  the  Provenqaux  could  scarcely  be  called  Frenchmen  in 
those  early  days.  They  were  no  more  beloved  of  their 
northern  neighbours  than  the  English  were  by  the  Scots, 
and  the  expedition  against  them  was  as  much  justified  by 
distinctions  of  race  as  was  the  conflict  of  Bannockburn. 

The  chapter  of  history  that  followed  we  would  fain  on  all 
sides  obliterate,  if  we  could,  from  the  records  of  humanity, 
and  we  doubt  not  that  the  strictest  Catholic  as  much  as 
the  most  indignant  Protestant  would  share  this  wish;  but 
that,  alas,  cannot  be  done.  And  no  such  feeling  was  in  any 
mind  of  the  time.  The  remedy  was  not  thought  to  be  too 
terrible  for  the  disease,  for  centuries  after:  and  the  most 
Christian  souls  rejoiced  in  the  victories  of  the  Crusade, 
the  towns  destroyed,  the  nests  of  heretics  broken  up.  The 
very  heretics  themselves,  who  suffered  fiercely  and  made 
reprisals  when  they  could,  had  no  doctrine  of  toleration 
among  themselves,  and  would  have  extirpated  a  wicked 
hierarchy,  and  put  down  the  mass  with  a  high  hand,  as 
four  hundred  years  later  their  more  enlightened  successors 
did,  when  the  power  came  to  them.  There  are  many 
shuddering  spectators  who  now  try  to  represent  to  them- 
selves that  Innocent  so  far  off  was  but  half,  or  not  at  all, 
acquainted  with  the  atrocities  committed  in  his  name ;  that 
his  legates  over-stepped  their  authority,  as  frequently  hap- 
pened, and  were  carried  away  by  the  excitement  of  car- 
nage and  the  terrible  impulse  of  destruction  common  to 
wild  beasts  and  men  when  that  fatal  passion  is  aroused; 
and  that  his  generals  soon  converted  their  Crusade,  as 
Crusades  more  or  less  were  converted  everywhere,  into  a 
raid  of  fierce  acquisition,  a  war  for  booty  and  personal  en- 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  361 

richment.  And  all  this  is  true  for  as  much  as  it  is  worth 
in  reducing  the  guilt  of  Innocent ;  but  that  is  not  much,  for 
he  was  a  man  very  well  acquainted  with  human  nature,  and 
knew  that  such  things  must  be. 

As  for  Simon  de  Montfort  and  his  noble  companions, 
they  were  not,  much  less  were  the  men-at-arms  under  their 
orders,  superior  to  all  that  noble  chivalry  of  France  which 
had  started  from  Venice  with  so  fine  a  purpose,  but  had  been 
drawn  aside  to  crush  and  rob  Constantinople  on  their  way, 
only  some  seven  years  before.  Baldwin  of  Flanders  became 
Emperor  of  the  great  eastern  city  in  1204.  Simon  de  Mont- 
fort  named  himself  Count  de  Toulouse  in  1215.  Both  had 
been  sent  forth  with  the  Pope's  blessing  on  quite  a  differ- 
ent mission,  both  had  succumbed  to  the  temptation  of  their 
own  aggrandisement.  But  of  the  two,  at  the  end  Simon 
was  the  more  faithful.  If  he  committed  or  permitted  to  be 
committed  the  most  abominable  cruelties,  he  nevertheless 
did  stamp  out  heresy.  Provence  regained  her  gaiety,  her 
courts  of  love,  her  gift  of  song.  Innocent,  for  once  in  his 
life,  with  all  the  dreadful  drawbacks  accompanying  it,  was 
successful  in  the  object  for  which  he  had  striven. 

It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  have  to  say  of  the  most  powerful 
of  Popes,  in  whose  time  the  Papacy,  we  are  told,  reached 
its  highest  climax  of  power  in  the  affairs  of  men :  he  was 
successful  once :  in  devastating  a  country  and  slaughtering 
by  thousands  its  inhabitants  in  the  name  of  God  and  the 
Church.  All  his  attempts  to  set  right  the  affairs  of  the 
world  failed.  He  neither  nominated  an  emperor,  nor  saved 
a  servile  king  from  ruin,  nor  struck  a  generous  blow  for 
that  object  of  the  enthusiasm  of  his  age,  the  deliverance  of 
Jerusalem.  All  of  these  he  attempted  with  the  utmost 
strain  and  effort  of  his  powers,  and  many  more,  but  failed. 
Impossible  to  say  that  it  was  not  truth  and  justice  which 
he  set  before  him  at  all  times;  he  was  an  honest  man  and 
loved  not  bloodshed;  he  had  a  great  intelligence,  and  there 


362  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

is  no  proof  that  his  heart  was  cold  or  his  sympathies  dull. 
But  his  career,  which  is  so  often  quoted  as  an  example  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  Papacy,  seems  to  us  the  greatest  and 
most  perfect  demonstration  that  such  a  supremacy  was  im- 
possible. Could  it  have  been  done,  Innocent  would  have 
done  it;  but  it  could  not  be  done,  and  in  the  plenitude  of 
his  power  he  failed  over  and  over  again.  What  credit  he 
might  have  had  in  promoting  Otho  to  the  empire  fades  away 
when  we  find  that  it  was  the  accident  of  Philip's  death  and 
not  the  support  of  the  Pope  that  did  it.  In  England  his 
assumed  suzerainty  was  a  farce,  and  all  his  efforts  ineffect- 
ual to  move  one  way  or  the  other  the  destinies  of  the  na- 
tion. At  Constantinople  his  prayers  and  commands  and 
entreaties  had  about  as  much  power  as  the  outcries  of  a 
woman  upon  his  own  special  envoys  and  soldiers.  In 
France  he  had  one  brief  triumph  indeed,  and  broke  a 
poor  woman's  heart,  a  thing  which  is  accomplished  every 
day  by  much  easier  methods ;  though  his  action  then  was 
the  only  moral  triumph  of  his  reign,  being  at  least  in  the 
cause  of  the  weak  against  the  strong.  And  he  filled  Prov- 
ence with  blood  and  misery,  and  if  he  crushed  heresy, 
crushed  along  with  it  that  noble  and  beautiful  country, 
and  its  royal  house,  and  its  liberties.  Did  he  ever  feel 
the  contrast  between  his  attempts  and  his  successes  ?  Was 
he  sore  at  heart  with  the  long  and  terrible  failure  of  his 
efforts  ?  or  was  he  comforted  by  such  small  consolations  as 
fell  to  him,  the  final  vindication  of  Ingelburga,  the  ficti- 
tious submission  of  the  Greek  Church,  the  murderous  ex- 
tinction of  heresy  ?  Was  it  worth  while  for  a  great  man 
to  have  endured  and  struggled,  to  have  lived  sleepless,  rest- 
less, ever  vigilant,  watching  every  corner  of  the  earth,  keep- 
ing up  a  thousand  espionages  and  secret  intelligences  all  for 
this,  and  nothing  more  ? 

He  was  the  greatest  of  the  Popes  and  attained  the  climax 
of  papal  power.     He  carried  out  the  principles  which  Hilde- 


iv.]  INNOCENT  in.  363 

brand  had  established,  and  asserted  to  their  fullest  all  the 
claims  which  that  great  Pontiff,  also  a  deeply  disappointed 
man,  had  made.  Gregory  and  Innocent  are  the  two  most 
prominent  names  in  the  lists  of  the  Papacy ;  they  are  the 
greatest  generals  of  that  army  which,  in  its  way,  is  an  army 
invincible,  against  which  the  gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail. 
Let  us  hope  that  the  merciful  illusions  which  keep  human 
nature  going  prevented  them  from  seeing  how  little  all  their 
great  claims  had  come  to.  Gregory  indeed,  dying  sad  and 
in  exile,  felt  it  more  or  less,  but  was  able  to  set  it  down  to 
the  wickedness  of  the  world  in  which  truth  and  justice  did 
not  reign.  And  there  is  a  profound  sadness  in  the  last  dis- 
course of  Innocent ;  but  perhaps  they  were  neither  of  them 
aware  what  a  deep  stamp  of  failure  remains,  visible  for  all 
the  world  to  see,  upon  those  great  undertakings  of  theirs 
which  were  not  for  the  Church  but  for  the  world.  God  had 
not  made  them  judges  and  dividers  among  men,  though 
they  believed  so  to  the  bottom  of  their  hearts. 

It  is  perhaps  overbold  in  a  writer  without  authority  to  set 
forth  an  individual  opinion  in  the  face  of  much  more  power- 
ful judgments.  But  this  book  pretends  to  nothing  except, 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  form  it,  a  glance  of  individual 
opinion  and  impression  in  respect  to  matters  which  are 
otherwise  too  great  for  any  but  the  most  learned  and 
weighty  historian.  The  statement  of  Dean  Milman  that 
"  He  (Innocent)  succeeded  in  imposing  an  Emperor  on  Ger- 
many "  appears  to  us  quite  inconsistent  with  the  facts  of  the 
case.  But  we  would  not  for  a  moment  pretend  that  Milman 
does  not  know  a  hundred  times  better  than  the  present 
writer,  whose  rapid  glance  at  the  exterior  aspects  of  history 
will  naturally  go  for  what  it  is  worth  and  no  more.  The 
aspect  of  a  pageant  however  to  one  who  watches  it  go  by 
from  a  window,  is  sometimes  an  entertaining  variety  upon 
its  fullest  authoritative  description. 

It  will  be  understood  that  we  have  no  idea  of  represent- 


364  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

ing  the  reign  of  these  great  Popes  as  without  power  in  many 
other  matters.  They  strengthened  greatly  the  authority  and 
control  exercised  by  the  Holy  See  over  its  special  and  legit- 
imate empire,  the  Church.  They  drew  to  the  court  of  Rome 
so  many  appeals  and  references  of  disputed  cases  in  law  and 
in  morals  as  to  shed  an  increased  influence  over  the  world 
like  an  unseen  irrigation  swelling  through  all  the  roots  and 
veins  of  Christendom.  They  even  gave  so  much  additional 
prestige  and  importance  to  Church  dignitaries  as  to  increase 
the  power  which  the  great  Prelates  often  exercised  against 
themselves.  But  the  highest  pretensions  of  the  Successors 
of  Peter,  the  Vicars  of  God,  to  be  judges  and  arbiters  of  the 
world,  setters  up  and  pullers  down  of  thrones,  came  to  no 
fulfilment.  The  Popes  were  flattered  by  appeals,  by  mock 
submissions  on  the  weaker  side,  even  by  petitions  for  the 
ever  ready  interference  which  they  seem  to  have  attempted 
in  good  faith,  always  believing  in  their  own  authority. 
But  in  the  end  their  decisions  and  decrees  in  Imperial  ques- 
tions were  swept  away  like  chaff  before  the  strong  wind 
of  secular  power  and  policy,  and  history  cannot  point  to 
one  important  revolution l  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  or  any 
separate  kingdom  made  by  their  unaided  power. 

The  last  great  act  of  Innocent's  life  was  the  council  held 
in  the  year  1215  in  Rome,  known  as  the  fourth  Lateran 
Council.  It  was  perhaps  the  greatest  council  that  had  ever 
been  held  there,  not  only  because  of  the  large  number  of 
ecclesiastics  present,  but  because  for  the  first  time  East  and 
West  sat  together,  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  (or 
rather  two  patriarchs,  for  the  election  was  contested)  taking 
their  place  in  it,  in  subordination  to  the  Pope,  as  if  the 

1  The  Vice-Provost  of  Eton  who  has  kindly  read  these  pages  in  the 
gentle  criticism  which  can  say  no  harsh  word,  here  remarks  :  "  If  suc- 
cess is  measured  less  by  immediate  results  than  by  guiding  the  way  in 
which  men  think,  I  should  say  that  Innocent  was  successful.  '  What 
will  the  Pope  say  ? '  was  the  question  asked  in  every  corner  of  the 
world  — though  he  was  not  always  obeyed." 


iv.]  INNOCENT  in.  365 

great  schism  had  never  been.  From  all  the  corners  of  the 
earth  came  the  bishops  and  archbishops,  the  not  less  impor- 
tant abbots,  prelates  who  were  nobles  as  well  as  priests, 
counting  among  them  the  greatest  lords  in  their  respective 
districts  as  well  as  the  greatest  ecclesiastics.  Innocent  him- 
self was  a  man  of  fifty-five,  of  most  temperate  life,  vigorous 
in  mind  and  body,  likely  to  survive  for  years,  and  to  do 
better  than  he  had  ever  yet  done  —  and  he  was  so  far  tri- 
umphant for  the  moment  that  all  the  kings  of  Christendom 
had  envoys  at  this  council,  and  everything  united  to  make 
it  magnificent  and  important.  Why  he  should  have  taken 
for  his  text  the  ominous  words  he  chose  when  addressing 
that  great  and  splendid  assembly  in  his  own  special  church 
and  temple,  surrounded  with  all  the  emblems  of  power  and 
supremacy,  it  is  impossible  to  tell ;  and  one  can  imagine  the 
thrill  of  strange  awe  and  astonishment  which  must  have 
run  through  that  vast  synod,  when  the  Pope  rose,  and 
from  his  regal  chair  pronounced  these  words,  first  uttered 
in  the  depths  of  the  mysterious  passion  and  anguish  of  the 
greatest  sufferer  on  earth.  "  With  desire  I  have  desired  to 
eat  this  passover  with  you  before  I  suffer."  What  was  it 
that  Innocent  anticipated  or  feared  ?  There  was  no  suffering 
before  him  that  any  one  knew,  no  trouble  that  could  reach 
the  chief  of  Christendom,  heavy-hearted  and  depressed, 
amid  all  his  guards,  spiritual  and  temporal,  as  he  may 
have  been.  What  could  they  think,  all  those  great  prelates 
looking,  no  doubt,  often  askance  at  each  other,  brethren 
in  the  church,  but  enemies  at  home  ?  Nor  were  the  first 
words  of  his  discourse  less  solemn. 

"  As  to  me,  to  live  is  Christ  and  to  die  is  gain,  I  should  not  refuse  to 
drink  the  cup  of  suffering,  were  it  presented  to  me,  for  the  defence  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  for  the  deliverance  of  the  Holy  Land,  or  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  Church,  even  although  my  desire  had  been  to  live  in  the 
flesh  until  the  work  that  has  been  begun  should  be  accomplished.  Not- 
withstanding not  my  will,  but  the  will  of  God  be  done  !  This  is  why 
I  say,  '  With  desire  I  have  desired  to  eat  this  passover  with  you  before 
I  suffer.'  " 


306  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

These  words  sound  in  our  ears  as  if  the  preacher  who 
uttered  them  was  011  the  verge,  if  not  of  martyrdom,  at  least 
of  death  and  the  premature  end  of  his  work.  And  so  he 
was  :  although  there  was  as  yet  no  sign  in  heaven  or  earth, 
or  so  far  as  appears  in  his  own  consciousness,  that  this  end 
was  near. 

The  discourse  which  followed  was  remarkable  in  its  way, 
the  way  of  the  schoolmen  and  dialecticians  so  far  as  its  form 
went.  He  began  by  explaining  the  word  Passover,  which  in 
Hebrew  he  said  meant  passage  —  in  which  sense  of  the  word 
he  declared  himself  to  desire  to  celebrate  a  triple  Passover, 
.corporal,  spiritual,  and  eternal,  with  the  Church  around  him. 

"A  corporal  Passover,  the  passage  from  one  place  to 
another  to  deliver  Jerusalem  oppressed:  a  spiritual  Pass- 
over, a  passage  from  one  situation  to  another  for  the  sanc- 
tification  of  the  universal  Church ;  an  eternal  Passover,  a 
passage  from  one  life  to  another,  to  eternal  glory.'7  For 
the  first,  the  deliverance  of  the  Holy  Land  and  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  after  a  solemn  description  of  the  miseries  of 
Jerusalem  enslaved,  he  declares  that  he  places  himself  in 
the  hands  of  the  brethren. 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  ought  to  be  the  first  object  of  the 
Church.  What  ought  we  now  to  do,  dear  brethren?  I  place  myself 
in  your  hands.  I  open  my  heart  entirely  to  you,  I  desire  your  advice. 
I  am  ready,  if  it  seems  good  to  you,  to  go  forth  on  a  personal  mission 
to  all  the  kings,  princes,  and  peoples,  or  even  to  the  Holy  Land  —  and 
if  I  can  to  awaken  them  all  with  a  strong  voice  that  they  may  arise  to 
fight  the  battle  of  the  Lord,  to  avenge  the  insult  done  to  Jesus  Christ, 
who  has  been  expelled  by  reason  of  our  sins  from  the  country  and 
dwelling  which  He  bought  with  His  blood,  and  in  which  He  accom- 
plished all  things  necessary  for  our  salvation.  We,  the  priests  of  the 
Lord,  ought  to  attach  a  special  importance  to  the  redemption  of  the 
Holy  Land  by  our  blood  and  our  wealth  ;  no  one  should  draw  back 
from  such  a  great  work.  In  former  times  the  Lord  seeing  a  similar 
humiliation  of  Israel  saved  it  by  means  of  the  priests ;  for  he  delivered 
Jerusalem  and  the  Temple  from  the  infidels  by  Matthias  the  son  of  the 
priest  Maccabseus."  , 

He  goes  on  to  describe  the  spiritual  passage  by. the  singu- 
lar emblem  to  be  found  in  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel,  of  the 


iv.]  INKOCENT  III.  369 

man  clothed  in  white  linen  who  inscribed  a  Tau  upon  the 
foreheads  of  all  those  who  mourned  over  the  iniquities  com- 
mitted around  them,  the  profanations  of  the  temple  and  the 
universal  idol  worship  —  while  the  executors  of  God's  will 
went  after  him,  to  slay  the  rest.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
of  the  application  of  this  image.  It  had  already  been  seen 
in  full  fulfilment  in  the  streets  of  Beziers,  Carcassone,  and 
Toulouse,  and  many  of  those  present  had  taken  part  in  the 
carnage.  It  is  true  that  the  rumour  went  that  the  men 
marked  with  a  mark  had  not  even  been  looked  for,  and  one 
of  the  wonderful  sayings  which  seem  to  spring  up  some- 
how in  the  air,  at  great  moments,  had  been  fathered  upon  a 
legate  —  Tuez  les  tons.  Dieu  reconnaUra  les  siens  —  a  phrase 
which,  like  the  "  Up,  Guards,  and  at  them  ! "  of  Waterloo, 
is  said  to  have  no  historical  foundation  whatever.  Innocent 
was,  however,  clear  not  only  that  every  good  Catholic  should 
be  marked  with  the  Tau  —  but  that  the  armed  men  whom  he 
identifies  with  the  priests,  his  own  great  army,  seated  there 
round  him,  men  who  had  already  seen  the  blood  flow  and 
the  flames  arise,  should  strike  and  spare  not. 

"  You  are  commanded  then  to  go  through  the  city  ;  obey  him  who 
is  your  supreme  Pontiff,  as  your  guide  and  your  master  —  and  strike 
by  interdict,  by  suspension,  by  excommunication,  by  deprivation,  ac- 
cording to  the  weight  of  the  fault.  But  do  no  harm  to  those  who  bear 
the  mark,  for  the  Lord  says :  '  Hurt  not  the  earth,  neither  the  sea, 
neither  the  trees  till  we  have  sealed  on  their  foreheads  the  servants  of 
God.'  It  is  said  in  other  places,  '  Let  your  eye  spare  no  man,  and  let 
there  be  no  acceptance  of  persons  among  you,'  and  in  another  passage, 
'  Strike  in  order  to  heal,  kill  in  order  to  give  life.'  " 

These  were  the  Pope's  sentiments,  and  they  were  those  of 
his  age ;  how  many  centuries  it  took  to  modify  them  we 
are  all  aware ;  four  hundred  years  at  least,  to  moderate 
the  practical  ardour  of  persecution  —  for  the  theory  never 
dies.  But  there  is  at  the  same  time  something  savage  in 
the  fervour  of  such  an  address  to  all  these  men  of  peace. 
It  is  perhaps  a  slight  modification  that  like  Ezekiel  it  is 

2B 


370  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  priests  themselves,  the  dwellers  in  the  Temple,  who  fill 
it  with  false  gods  and  abominations,  that  he  specially 
threatens.  There  were,  however,  so  far  as  appears,  few 
priests  among  the  slaughtered  townsfolk  of  those  unhappy 
cities  of  Provence. 

The  Council  responded  to  the  uncompromising  directions 
of  their  head  by  placing  among  the  laws  of  the  Church 
many  stringent  ordinances  against  heretics;  their  goods 
were  to  be  confiscated,  they  were  to  be  turned  out  of  their 
houses  and  possessions;  every  prince  who  refused  to  act 
against  them  was  to  be  excommunicated,  his  people  freed 
from  their  vow  of  allegiance.  If  any  one  ventured  to 
preach  without  the  permission  of  the  Pope  he  also  was  sub- 
ject to  excommunication.  A  great  many  laws  for  the  better 
regulation  of  the  Church  itself  followed,  for  Innocent  had 
always  acknowledged  the  fact  that  the  worldliness  of  the 
Church,  and  the  failure  of  the  clergy  to  maintain  a  high 
ideal  of  Christian  life,  was  the  great  cause  of  heresy.  The 
Council  was  also  very  distinct  in  refusing  temporal  author- 
ity to  the  priests.  The  clergy  had  their  sphere  and  laymen 
theirs;  those  spheres  were  separate,  they  were  inviolable 
each  by  the  other.  It  is  true  that  this  principle  was  estab- 
lished chiefly  with  the  intention  of  freeing  the  clergy  from 
the  necessity  of  answering  before  civil  tribunals ;  but  logi- 
cally it  cuts  both  ways.  The  Jews,  to  whom  Innocent  had 
been  just  and  even  merciful,  were  also  dealt  with  and  placed 
under  new  and  stringent  disabilities,  chiefly  on  account,  it 
seems,  of  the  extortions  they  practised  on  needy  Crusaders, 
eager  at  any  price  to  procure  advances  for  their  equipment. 
Various  doctrinal  points  were  also  decided,  as  well  as  many 
questions  of  rank  and  precedence  in  the  hierarchy,  and  the 
establishment  of  the  two  new  monastic  orders  of  St.  Francic 
and  of  St.  Dominic.  It  is  needless  to  add  a  list  of  who  was 
excommunicated  and  who  censured  throughout  the  world. 
Among  the  former  were  the  barons  of  Magna  Charta  and 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  371 

Louis  of  France,  the  son  of  Philip  Augustus,  who  had  gone 
to  England  on  their  call  and  to  their  relief,  a  movement  set 
on  foot  by  Innocent  himself  before  the  submission  of  King 
John.  As  usual,  neither  of  them  took  any  notice  of  the 
anathema,  though  other  combinations  shortly  arose  which 
broke  their  alliance. 

The  great  event  of  the  Council,  however,  was  the  appeal 
of  the  forfeited  lords  of  Provence  against  the  leaders  of 
the  late  Crusade.  Eaymond  of  Toulouse,  accompanied 
by  the  Counts  of  Foix  and  of  Comminges,  appeared  before 
the  Pontiff  and  the  high  court  of  the  Church  to  make 
their  plaint  against  Simon  de  Montfort,  who  had  deprived 
all  three  of  their  lands  and  sovereignties.  A  great  recrimi- 
nation arose  between  the  two  sides,  both  so  strongly  rep- 
resented. The  dethroned  princes  accused  their  conquerors 
with  all  the  vehemence  of  men  wronged  and  robbed ;  and 
such  a  bloodstained  prelate  as  Bishop  Fulk  of  Toulouse 
was  put  forth  as  the  advocate  on  the  other  side.  "You 
are  the  cause  of  the  death  of  a  multitude  of  Catholic  sol- 
diers," cried  the  bishop,  "  six  thousand  of  whom  were  killed 
at  Montjoye  alone."  "  Nay,  rather,"  replied  the  Comte  de 
Foix,  "it  is  by  your  fault  that  Toulouse  was  sacked  and 
10,000  of  the  inhabitants  slain."  Such  pleas  are  strange 
in  any  court  of  justice ;  they  were  altogether  new  in  a 
Council  of  the  Church.  The  princes  themselves,  who  thus 
laid  their  wrongs  before  the  Pope,  were  not  proved  to  be 
heretics,  or  if  they  had  ever  wavered  in  the  faith  were 
now  quite  ready  to  obey ;  and  Innocent  himself  was  forced 
to  allow  that:  "Since  the  Counts  and  their  companions 
have  promised  at  all  times  to  submit  to  the  Church,  they 
cannot  without  injustice  be  despoiled  of  their  principali- 
ties." But  the  utterance,  it  may  well  be  understood,  was 
weak,  and  choked  by  the  impossibility  of  denouncing  Simon 
de  Montfort,  the  leader  of  a  Crusade  set  on  foot  by  the 
Church,  the  Captain  of  the  Christian  army.  It  might  be 


372  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

that  lie  had  exceeded  his  commission,  that  the  legates  had 
misunderstood  their  instructions,  and  that  all  the  leaders, 
both  secular  and  spiritual,  had  been  carried  away  by  the 
horrible  excitement  and  passion  of  bloodshed :  but  yet  it 
was  impossible  to  disown  the  Captain  who  had  taken  up 
this  enterprise  as  a  true  son  of  the  Church,  although  he  had 
ended  in  the  spirit  (not  unusual  among  sons  of  the  Church)  . 
of  an  insatiable  raider  and  conqueror.  The  love  of  gain 
had  warped  the  noble  aims  even  of  the  first  Crusade : 
what  wonder  that  it  became  a  fiery  thirst  in  the  invaders  of 
lands  so  rich  and  tempting  as  those  of  the  fertile  and  sunny 
Provence.  And  the  Pope  could  not  pronounce  against  his 
own  champion.  He  would  fain  have  preserved  Raymond 
of  Toulouse  and  Simon  de  Montf ort  too  —  but  that  was  im- 
possible. And  the  Council  decreed  by  a  great  majority  that 
Raymond  had  been  justly  deprived  of  his  lands,  and  that 
Simon,  the  new  Count,  was  their  rightful  possessor.  The 
defender  of  Innocent  can  only  say  that  the  Pope  yielded  to 
and  sanctioned  this  judgment  in  order  that  the  bishops  of 
France  might  not  be  alienated  and  rendered  indifferent  to 
the  great  Crusade  upon  which  his  heart  was  set,  which  he 
would  fain  have  led  himself  had  Providence  permitted  it  so 
to  be. 

There  is  a  most  curious  postscript  to  this  bloody  and 
terrible  history.  Young  Raymond  of  Toulouse,  whose  fate 
seemed  a  sad  one  even  to  the  members  of  the  Council  who 
finally  confirmed  his  deprivation,  attracted  the  special  re- 
gard—  it  is  not  said  how,  probably  by  some  youthful  grace 
of  simplicity  or  gallant  mien  —  of  Innocent,  who  bade  him 
take  heart,  and  promised  to  give  him  certain  lands  that 
he  might  still  live  as  a  prince.  "  If  another  council 
should  be  held,"  said  the  Pope  with  a  curious  casuistry, 
"  the  pleas  against  Montf  ort  may  be  listened  to."  "  Holy 
Father,"  said  the  youth,  "  bear  me  no  malice  if  I  can  win  back 
again  my  principalities  from  the  Count  de  Montfort,  or  from 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  373 

those  others  who  hold  them."  "  Whatever  thou  dost,"  said 
the  Pope  piously,  "  may  God  give  thee  grace  to  begin  it  well, 
and  to  finish  it  still  better."  Innocent  is  scarcely  a  man 
to  tolerate  a  smile.  We  dare  not  even  imagine  a  touch  of 
humour  in  that  austere  countenance ;  but  the  pious  hope 
that  this  fair  youth  might  perhaps  overcome  his  conqueror, 
who  was  the  very  champion  and  captain  of  the  army  of  the 
Lord  as  directed  by  the  Pope,  is  remarkable  indeed. 

The  great  event  of  the  Council  was  over,  the  rumour  of 
the  new  Crusade  which  the  Pope  desired  to  head  himself, 
and  for  which  in  the  meantime  he  was  moving  heaven 
and  earth,  began  to  stir  Europe.  If,  perhaps,  he  had 
accomplished  little  hitherto  of  all  that  he  had  hoped,  here 
remained  a  great  thing  which  Innocent  might  still  accom- 
plish. He  set  out  on  a  tour  through  the  great  Italian 
towns  to  rouse  their  enthusiasm,  and,  if  possible,  induce 
them,  in  the  first  place,  to  sacrifice  their  mutual  animosi- 
ties, and  then  to  supply  the  necessary  ships,  and  help  with 
the  necessary  money  for  the  great  undertaking.  The  first 
check  was  received  from  Pisa,  which  would  do  whatever 
the  Pope  wished  except  forego  its  hatred  against  Genoa  or 
give  up  its  revenge.  Innocent  was  in  Perugia,  on  his  way 
towards  the  north,  when  this  news  arrived  to  vex  him :  but 
it  was  not  unexpected,  nor  was  there  anything  in  it  to  over- 
whelm his  spirit.  It  was  July,  and  he  was  safer  and  better 
on  that  hillside  than  he  would  have  been  in  his  house  at 
the  Lateran  in  the  heats  of  summer:  and  an  attack  of 
fever  at  that  season  is  a  simple  matter,  which  the  ordinary 
Eoman  anticipates  without  any  particular  alarm.  He  had, 
we  are  told,  a  great  love  for  oranges,  and  continued  to  eat 
them,  notwithstanding  his  illness,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  what  harm  the  oranges  could  do.  However,  the 
hour  was  come  which  Innocent  had  perhaps  dimly  foreseen 
when  he  rose  up  among  all  his  bishops  and  princes  in  the 
great  Lateran  church,  and,  knowing  nothing,  gave  forth 


374  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

from  his  high  presiding  chair  the  dying  words  of  our  Lord, 
"  With  desire  I  have  desired  to  eat  this  passover  with  you 
before  I  suffer."  One  wonders  if  his  text  came  back  to 
him,  if  he  asked  himself  in  his  heart  why  his  lips  should 
have  uttered  those  fateful  words  unawares,  and  if  the  bit- 
terness of  that  withdrawal,  while  still  full  of  force  and  life, 
from  all  the  hopes  and  projects  to  which  he  had  set  his 
hand,  was  heavy  upon  him  ?  He  had  proclaimed  them  in 
the  hush  and  breathless  silence  of  that  splendid  crowd  in 
the  ruddy  days  of  the  late  autumn,  St.  Martin's  festival  at 
Rome :  and  the  year  had  not  gone  its  round  when,  in  the 
summer  weather  at  Perugia,  he  "suffered"  —  as  he  had — 
yet  had  not,  perhaps  foreseen. 

Thus  ended  a  life  of  great  effort  and  power,  a  life  of  dis- 
appointment and  failure,  full  of  toil,  full  of  ambition,  the 
highest  aims,  and  the  most  consistent  purpose  —  but  end- 
ing in  nothing,  fulfilling  no  lofty  aim,  and,  except  in  the 
horrible  episode  of  bloodshed  and  destruction  from  which 
his  name  can  never  be  dissociated,  accomplishing  no  change 
in  the  world  which  he  had  attempted,  in  every  quarter, 
to  transform  or  to  renew.  Never  was  so  much  attempted 
with  so  little  result.  He  claimed  the  power  to  bind  and 
loose,  to  set  up  and  to  pull  down,  to  decide  every  disputed 
cause  and  settle  every  controversy.  But  he  succeeded  in 
doing  only  one  good  deed,  which  was  to  force  the  king  of 
France  to  retain  an  unloved  wife,  and  one  ill  one,  to  print 
the  name  of  Holy  Church  in  blood  across  a  ruined  province, 
to  the  profit  of  many  bloody  partisans,  but  never -to  his 
own,  nor  to  any  cause  which  could  be  considered  that  of 
justice  or  truth.  This,  people  say,  was  the  age  of  history 
in  which  the  power  of  the  Church  was  highest,  and  Inno- 
cent was  its  strongest  ruler ;  but  this  was  all  which,  with 
his  great  powers,  his  unyielding  character  and  all  the 
forces  at  his  command,  he  was  able  to  achieve.  He  was  in 
his  way  a  great  man,  and  his  purpose  was  never  ignoble ; 


iv.]  INNOCENT  III.  375 

but  this  was  all :  and  history  does  not  contain  a  sadder  page 
than  that  which  records  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  pon- 
tificates, and  the  strongest  Pope  that  history  has  known. 

During  the  whole  of  Innocent's  Popedom  he  had  been  more 
or  less  at  war  with  his  citizens  notwithstanding  his  success 
at  first.  Rome  murmured  round  him  never  content,  occa- 
sionally bursting  out  into  fits  of  rage,  which,  if  not  absolute 
revolt,  were  so  near  it  as  to  suggest  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Pope  to  his  native  place  Anagni,  or  some  other  quiet  resi- 
dence, till  the  tumult  calmed  down.  The  greatest  of  these 
commotions  occurred  on  the  acquisition  of  certain  properties 
in  Rome,  by  the  unpopular  way  of  foreclosure  on  mortgages, 
by  the  Pope's  brother  Richard,  against  whom  no  doubt  some 
story  of  usury  or  oppression  was  brought  forth,  either  real 
or  invented,  to  awaken  the  popular  emotion:  and  in  this 
case  Innocent's  withdrawal  had  very  much  the  character  of 
an  escape.  The  Papa-Re  was  certainly  not  a  popular  insti- 
tution in  the  thirteenth  century.  This  same  brother  Rich- 
ard had  many  gifts  bestowed  upon  him  to  the  great  anger 
and  suspicion  of  the  people,  and  it  was  he  who  built,  with 
money  given  him,  it  is  said,  from  "  the  treasury  of  the 
Church,"  the  great  Torre  dei  Conti,  which  for  many  genera- 
tions stood  strong  and  sullen  near  the  Baths  of  Titus,  and 
within  easy  reach  of  the  Lateran,  "  for  the  defence  of  the 
family,"  a  defence  for  which  it  was  not  always  adequate. 
Innocent  afterwards  granted  a  valuable  fief  in  the  Romagna 
to  his  brother,  and  he  was  generally  far  from  unmindful  of 
his  kindred.  All  that  his  warmest  defenders  can  say  for 
him  indeed  in  this  respect  is  that  he  made  up  for  his  devo- 
tion to  the  interests  of  the  Conti  by  great  liberality  towards 
Rome.  On  one  occasion  of  distress  and  famine  he  fed  eight 
thousand  people  daily,  and  at  all  times  the  poor  had  a  right 
to  the  remnants  left  from  his  own  table  —  which  however 
was  not  perhaps  any  great  thing  as  his  living  was  of  the 
simplest. 


376  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

What  was  still  more  important,  he  built,  or  perhaps 
rather  rebuilt  and  enlarged,  the  great  hospital,  still  one  of 
the  greatest  charitable  institutions  of  the  world,  of  the 
Santo  Spirito,  which  had  been  first  founded  several  centu- 
ries before  by  the  English  king  Ina  for  the  pilgrims  of  his 
country.  The  Ecclesia  in  Saxia,  probably  forsaken  in  these 
days  when  England  had  become  Norman,  formed  the  germ 
of  the  great  building,  afterwards  enlarged  by  various  suc- 
ceeding Popes.  It  is  said  now  to  have  1,600  beds,  and  to  be 
capable,  on  an  emergency,  of  accommodating  almost  double 
that  number  of  patients,  and  is,  or  was,  a  sort  of  providence 
for  the  poor  population  of  Rome.  It  was  Innocent  also  who 
began  the  construction,  or  rather  reconstruction,  for  in  that 
case  too  there  was  an  ancient  building,  of  the  Vatican,  now 
the  seat  and  title  of  the  papal  court  —  thinking  it  expedient 
that  there  should  be  a  house  capable  of  receiving  the  Popes 
near  the  church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  the  tomb  and 
shrine  of  the  Apostles.  It  is  not  supposed  that  the  present 
building  retains  any  of  the  work  of  that  early  time,  but  Inno- 
cent must  have  superintended  both  these  great  edifices,  and 
in  this  way,  as  also  by  many  churches  which  he  built  or  re- 
built, and  some  which  he  decorated  with  paintings  and  archi- 
tectural ornament,  he  had  his  part  in  the  reconstruction  and 
embellishment  of  that  mediaeval  Eome  which  after  long 
decay  and  much  neglect,  and  the  wholesale  robbery  of  the 
very  stones  of  the  older  city,  was  already  beginning  to  lift 
up  its  head  out  of  the  ashes  of  antiquity. 

Thus  if  he  took  with  one  hand  —  not  dishonestly,  in  the 
interest  of  his  family,  appropriating  fiefs  and  favours  which 
probably  could  not  have  been  better,  bestowed,  for  the  safety 
at  least  of  the  reigning  Pope  —  he  gave  liberally  and  intel- 
ligently with  the  other,  consulting  the  needs  of  the  people, 
and  studying  their  best  interests.  Yet  he  would  not  seem 
ever  to  have  been  popular.  His  spirit  probably  lacked  the 
bonhomie  which  conciliates  the  crowd :  though  we  are  told 


IV.] 


INNOCENT  III. 


377 


that  he  loved  public  celebrations,  and  did  not  frown  upon 
private  gaiety.     His  heart,  it  is  evident,  was  touched  for 


ALL  THAT  IS  LEFT  OF  THE  GHETTO. 


young  Eaymond  of  Toulouse,  whom  he  was  instrumental 
in  despoiling  of  his  lands,  but  whom  he  blessed  in  his  effort 
to  despoil  in  his  turn  the  orthodox  and  righteous  spoiler. 


378      THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.   [CH.  iv. 

He  was  neither  unkind,  nor  niggardly,  nor  luxurious.  "  The 
glory  of  his  actions  filled  the  great  city  and  the  whole 
world,"  said  his  epitaph.  At  least  he  had  the  credit  of 
being  the  greatest  of  all  the  Popes,  and  the  one  under  whom, 
as  is  universally  allowed,  the  papal  power  attained  its  climax. 
The  reader  must  judge  how  far  this  climax  of  power  justi- 
fied what  has  been  said. 


BOOK  III. 

LO  POPOLO:  AND  THE  TRIBUNE  OF 
THE  PEOPLE. 


ON   THE  TIBER. 


BOOK   III. 

LO  POPOLO:  AND  THE  TRIBUNE  OF 
THE  PEOPLE. 


CHAPTER    I. 

ROME    IN   THE    FOURTEENTH    CENTURY. 

WHEN  the  Papal  Seat  was  transferred  to  Avignon,  and 
Rome  was  left  to  its  own  devices  and  that  fluctuating 
popular  government  which  meant  little  beyond  a  wavering 
balance  of  power  between  two  great  families,  the  state  of  the 
ancient  imperial  city  became  more  disorderly,  tumultuous 
and  anarchical  than  that  of  almost  any  other  town  in  Italy, 
which  is  saying  much.  All  the  others  had  at  least  the  tra- 
ditions of  an  established  government,  or  a  sturdy  tyranny : 

Kome  alone  had  never  been  at  peace  and  scarcely  knew  how 

381 


382  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  compose  herself  under  any  sway.  She  had  fought  her 
Popes,  sometimes  desperately,  sometimes  only  captiously 
with  the  half-subdued  rebelliousness  of  ill-temper,  almost 
from  the  beginning  of  their  power ;  and  her  sons  had  long 
been  divided  into  a  multiplicity  of  parties,  each  holding  by 
one  of  the  nobles  who  built  their  fortresses  among  the  classic 
ruins,  and  defied  the  world  from  within  the  indestructible 
remnants  of  walls  built  by  the  Caesars.  One  great  family 
after  another  entrenched  itself  within  those  monuments  of 
the  ancient  ages.  The  Colosseum  was  at  one  time  the 
stronghold  of  the  great  Colonna :  Stefano,  the  head  of  that 
name,  inhabited  the  great  building  known  as  the  Theatre 
of  Marcellus  at  another  period,  and  filled  with  his  retainers 
an  entire  quarter.  The  castle  of  St.  Angelo,  with  various 
flanking  towers,  was  the  home  of  the  Orsini ;  and  these  two 
houses  more  or  less  divided  the  power  between  them,  the 
other  nobles  adhering  to  one  or  the  other  party.  Even  amid 
the  tumults  of  Florence  there  was  always  a  shadow  of  a 
principle,  a  supposed  or  real  cause  in  the  name  of  which  one 
party  drove  another  fuori,  out  of  the  city.  But  in  Rome 
even  the  great  quarrel  of  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  took  an 
almost  entirely  personal  character  to  increase  the  perpetual 
tumult.  The  vassals  of  the  Pope  were  not  on  the  Pope's 
side  nor  were  they  against  him, 

non  furon  rebelli 
N6  fur  fedeli  a  Dio,  ma  per  s6  foro. 

The  community  was  distracted  by  mere  personal  quarrels, 
by  the  feuds  of  the  great  houses  who  were  their  lords  but 
only  tore  asunder,  and  neither  protected  nor  promoted  the 
prosperity  of  that  greatest  of  Italian  cities,  which  in  its 
miserable  incompetence  and  tumult  was  for  a  long  time  the 
least  among  them. 

The  anonymous  historian  who  has  left  to  us  the  story  of 
Cola  di  Eienzi  affords  us  the  most  lively  picture  of  the  city 


i.]    ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.    383 

in  which,  in  his  terse  and  vivid  record,  there  is  the  per- 
petual sound  of  a  rushing,  half-armed  crowd,  of  blows  that 
seem  to  fall  at  random,  and  trumpets  that  sound,  and  bells 
that  ring,  calling  out  the  People  —  a  word  so  much  mis- 
used —  upon  a  hundred  trifling  occasions,  with  little  blood- 
shed one  would  imagine  but  a  continual  rushing  to  and 
fro  and  disturbance  of  all  the  ordinary  habits  of  life.  We 
need  not  enter  into  any  discussion  of  who  this  anonymous 
writer  was.  He  is  the  only  contemporary  historian  of 
Rienzi,  and  his  narrative  has  every  appearance  of  truth. 
He  narrates  the  things  he  saw  with  a  straightforwardness 
and  simplicity  which  are  very  convincing.  "  I  will  begin," 
he  says,  "  with  the  time  when  these  two  barons  (the  heads 
of  the  houses  of  Colonna  and  Orsini)  were  made  knights  by 
the  people  of  Eome.  Yet,"  he  adds,  with  an  afterthought, 
"  I  will  not  begin  with  an  account  of  that,  because  I  was 
then  at  too  tender  an  age  to  have  had  clear  knowledge  of 
it."  Thus  our  historian  is  nothing  if  not  an  eye-witness, 
very  keenly  aware  of  every  incident,  and  viewing  the  events, 
and  the  streams  of  people  as  they  pass,  with  the  never-fail- 
ing interest  of  a  true  chronicler.  We  may  quote  the 
incident  with  which  he  does  begin  as  an  example  of  his 
method  :  his  language  is  the  Italian  of  Rome,  a  local  version, 
yet  scarcely  to  be  called  a, patois:  it  presents  little  difficulty 
after  the  first  moment  to  the  moderately  instructed  reader, 
who  however,  I  trust,  will  kindly  understand  that  the  eccen- 
tricities are  the  chronicler's  and  not  errors  of  the  press. 

"  With  what  new  thing  shall  I  begin  ?  I  will  begin  with  the  time  of 
Jacopo  di  Saviello.  Being  made  Senator  solely  by  the  authority  of  King 
Robert,  he  was  driven  out  of  the  Capitol  by  the  Syndics,  who  were 
Stefano  de  la  Colonna,  Lord  of  Palestrina,  and  Poncello,  and  Messer 
Orso,  lord  of  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo.  These  two  went  to  the  Aracreli, 
and  ringing  the  bell  collected  the  people,  half  cavalry  and  half  on  foot. 
All  Rome  was  under  arms.  I  recollect  it  well  as  in  a  dream.  I 
was  in  Sta.  Maria  del  Popolo  (di  lo  Piubbico).  And  I  saw  the  line  of 
horsemen  passing,  going  towards  the  Capitol :  strongly  they  went  and 
proudly.  Half  of  them  were  well  mounted,  half  were  on  foot.  The 
last  of  them  (If  I  recollect  rightly)  wore  a  tunic  of  red  silk,  and  a  cap 


384  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  yellow  silk  on  his  head,  and  carried  a  bunch  of  keys  in  his  hand. 
They  passed  along  the  road  by  the  well  where  dwell  the  Ferrari,  at  the 
corner  of  the  house  of  Paolo  Jovenale.  The  line  was  long.  The  bell 
was  ringing  and  the  people  arming  themselves.  I  was  in  Santa  Maria 
di  lo  Piubbico.  To  these  things  I  put  my  seal  (as  witness).  Jacopo 
di  Saviello,  Senator,  was  in  the  Capitol.  He  was  surrounded  on  all 
sides  with  fortifications :  but  it  did  him  no  good  to  entrench  himself, 
for  Stefano,  his  uncle,  went  up,  and  Poncello  the  Syndic  of  Rome,  and 
took  him  gently  by  the  hand  and  set  him  on  his  horse  that  there  might 
be  no  risk  to  his  person.  There  was  one  who  thought  and  said,  '  Stefano, 
how  can  you  bring  your  nephew  thus  to  shame  ?  '  The  proud  answer 
of  Stefano  was  :  '  For  two  pennyworth  of  wax  I  will  set  him  free,'  — 
but  the  two  pence  were  not  forthcoming." 

Jacopo  di  Saviello,  thus  described  as  a  nominee  of  the 
King  of  Naples,  is  a  person  without  much  importance, 
touching  whose  individuality  it  would  take  too  much  space 
to  inquire.  He  appears  afterwards  as  the  right  hand  man 
of  his  cousin,  Sciarra  Colonna,  and  the  incident  has  no  doubt 
some  connection  with  the  story  that  follows :  but  we  quote 
it  merely  as  an  illustration  of  the  condition  of  Home  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  the  month  of  Sep- 
tember in  the  year  1327  there  occurred  an  episode  in  the 
history  of  the  city  which  affords  many  notable  scenes.  The 
city  of  Eome  had  in  one  of  its  many  caprices  taken  the  part 
of  Louis  of  Bavaria,  who  had  been  elected  Emperor  to  the 
great  displeasure  of  John  XXII.,  the  Pope  then  reigning  in 
Avignon.  According  to  the  chronicler,  though  the  fact  is 
not  mentioned  in  other  histories,  the  Pope  sent  his  legate  to 
Eome,  accompanied  by  the  "  Principe  de  la  Morea  "  and  a 
considerable  army,  in  order  to  prevent  the  reception  there 
of  II  Bavaro  as  he  is  called,  who  was  then  making  his  way 
through  Italy  with  much  success  and  triumph.  By  this 
time  there  would  seem  to  have  been  a  complete  revolution 
in  the  opinions  of  Rome,  and  the  day  when  two-pennyworth 
of  wax  could  not  be  got  for  the  ransom  of  Saviello  was 
forgotten  under  the  temporary  rule  of  Sciarra  Colonna, 
the  only  one  of  his  family  who  was  a  Ghibelline,  and  who 
held  strongly  for  Louis  of  Bavaria,  rejecting  all  the  tradi- 


i.]    HOME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY    385 

tions  of  his  house.  Our  chronicler,  who  is  very  impartial, 
and  gives  us  no  clue  to  his  own  opinions,  by  no  means  de- 
spised the  party  of  the  Pope.  There  arrived  before  Rome, 
he  tells  us,  "  seven  hundred  horsemen  and  foot  soldiers  with- 
out end.  All  the  barons  of  the  house  of  Orsini,"  and  many 
other  notable  persons  :  and  the  whole  army  was  molto  betta  e 
bene  acconcia,  well  equipped  and  beautiful  to  behold.  This 
force  gained  possession  of  the  Leonine  city,  entering  not  by 
the  gates  which  were  guarded,  but  by  the  ruined  wall :  and 
occupied  the  space  between  that  point  and  St.  Peter's,  mak- 
ing granne  festa,  and  filling  the  air  with  the  sound  of  their 
trumpets  and  all  kinds  of  music. 

"But  when  Sciarra  the  bold  captain  (franco  Capitano}  heard  of  it, 
it  troubled  him  not  at  all.  Immediately  he  armed  himself  and  caused 
the  bell  to  be  rung.  It  was  midnight  and  men  were  in  their  first  sleep. 
A  messenger  with  a  trumpet  was  sent  through  the  town,  proclaiming 
that  every  one  should  arm  himself,  that  the  enemy  had  entered  the 
gates  (in  Puortica)  and  that  all  must  assemble  on  the  Capitol.  The 
people  who  slept,  quickly  awakened,  each  took  up  his  arms.  Cossia 
was  the  name  of  the  crier.  The  bell  was  ringing  violently  (terribil- 
niente).  The  people  went  to  the  Capitol,  both  the  barons  and  the 
populace :  and  the  good  Capitano  addressed  them  and  said  that  the 
enemy  had  come  to  outrage  the  women  of  Rome.  The  people  were 
much  excited.  They  were  then  divided  into  parties,  of  one  of  which 
he  was  captain  himself.  Jacopo  Savrello  was  at  the  head  of  the  other 
which  was  sent  to  the  gate  of  San  Giovanni,  then  called  Puorta  Mag- 
giore.  And  this  was  done  because  they  knew  that  the  enemy  was 
divided  in  two  parties.  But  it  did  not  happen  so.  When  Jacopo 
reached  the  gate  he  found  no  one.  On  the  other  hand  Sciarra  rode 
with  his  barons.  Great  was  the  company  of  horsemen.  Seven  Rioni 
had  risen  to  arms  and  innumerable  were  the  people.  They  reached 
the  gate  of  San  Pietro.  I  remember  that  on  that  night  a  Roman  knight 
who  had  ridden  to  the  bridge  heard  a  trumpet  of  the  enemy,  and  desir- 
ing to  fly  jumped  from  his  horse,  and  leaving  it  came  on  on  foot.  I  know 
that  there  was  no  lack  of  fear  (non  habe  carestia  di  paura).  When 
the  people  reached  the  bridge  it  was  already  day,  the  dawn  had  come. 
Then  Sciarra  commanded  that  the  gate  should  be  opened.  The  crowd 
was  great,  and  the  enemy  were  much  troubled  to  see  on  the  bridge  the 
number  of  pennons,  for  they  knew  that  with  each  pennon  there  were 
twenty -five  men.  Then  the  gate  was  opened.  The  Rione  of  li  Monti 
went  first :  the  people  filled  the  Piazza  of  the  Castello  :  they  were  all 
ranged  in  order,  both  soldiers  and  people. 

"  Now  were  seen  the  rushing  of  the  horses,  one  on  the  top  of  another. 
One  gave,  another  took  (che  dao,  che  tolle),  great  was  the  noise,  great 
2c 


386  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

was  the  encounter.  Trumpets  sounded  on  this  side  and  that.  One 
gave,  and  another .  took.  Sciarra  and  Messer  Andrea  di  Campo  di 
Fiore  confronted  each  other  and  abused  each  other  loudly.  Then  they 
broke  their  lances  upon  each  other :  then  struck  with  their  swords : 
neither  would  have  less  than  the  life  of  the  other.  Presently  they 
separated  and  came  back  each  to  his  people.  There  was  great  striking 
of  swords  and  lances  and  some  fell.  It  could  be  seen  that  it  was  a 
cruel  fight.  The  people  of  Rome  wavered  back  and  forward  like  waves 
of  the  sea.  But  it  was  the  enemy  that  gave  way,  the  people  gained 
the  middle  of  the  Piazza.  Then  was  done  a  strange  thing.  One  whose 
name  was  Giovanni  Manno,  of  the  Colonna,  carried  the  banner  of  the 
people  of  Rome.  When  he  came  to  the  great  well,  which  is  in  that 
Piazza,  in  front  of  the  Incarcerate,  where  was  the  broken  wall,  he  took 
the  banner  and  threw  it  into  the  well.  And  this  he  did  to  discourage 
the  people  of  Rome.  The  traitor  well  deserved  to  lose  his  life.  The 
Romans  however  did  not  lose  courage,  and  already  the  Prince  of  the 
Morea  began  to  give  way.  He  had  either  to  fly  or  to  be  killed.  Then 
Sciarra  de  la  Colonna,  like  a  good  mother  with  her  son,  comforted  the 
people  and  made  everything  go  well,  such  great  sense  did  he  show. 
Also  another  novel  thing  was  done.  A  great  man  of  Rome  (Cola  de 
Madonna  Martorni  de  li  Anniballi  was  his  name)  was  a  very  bold  per- 
son and  young.  He  was  seized  with  desire  to  take  prisoner  the  Prince 
himself.  He  spurred  his  horse,  and  breaking  through  the  band  of 
strongmen  who  encircled  the  Prince  put  out  his  hand  to  take  him.  So 
he  had  hoped  to  do  at  least,  but  was  not  successful,  for  the  Prince  with 
an  iron  club  wounded  his  horse.  The  strength  of  the  Prince's  charger 
was  such  that  Cola  was  driven  back  :  but  the  horse  of  Cola  had  not 
sufficient  space  to  move,  and  its  hind  feet  slipping,  it  fell  into  the  ditch 
which  is  in  front  of  the  gate  of  the  Hospital  of  Santo  Spirito,  to  defend 
the  garden.  In  the  ditch  both  his  horse  and  he,  trying  to  escape,  fell, 
pressed  by  the  soldiers  of  the  Prince  :  and  there  was  he  killed.  Great 
was  the  mourning  which  Rome  made  over  so  distinguished  a  baron  — 
and  all  the  people  were  fired  with  indignation. 

"The  Prince  now  retired,  his  troops  yielded.  They  began  to  fly. 
The  flight  was  great.  Greater  was  the  slaughter.  They  were  killed 
like  sheep.  Much  resistance  was  made,  many  people  were  killed,  and 
the  Romans  gained  much  prey.  Among  those  taken  was  Bertollo  the 
chief  of  the  Orsini,  Captain  of  the  army  of  the  Church,  and  of  the 
Guelf  party :  and  if  it  had  not  been  that  Sciarra  caught  him  up  on 
the  croup  of  his  horse,  he  would  have  been  murdered  by  the  people." 

Then  follows  a  horrible  account  of  the  number  of  dead 
who  lay  mutilated  and  naked  on  every  roadside,  and  even 
among  the  vineyards  :  and  the  story  ends  with  Sciarra's 
return  to  the  Capitol  with  great  triumph,  and  of  a  beautiful 
pallium  which  was  sent  to  the  Church  of  Sant'  Angelo  in 
Pescheria,  along  with  a  chalice,  "in  honour  of  this  Eoman 
victory." 


i.]    ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.    389 

Curiously  enough  our  chronicler  takes  no  notice  of  the 
episode  of  which  this  attack  and  repulse  evidently  form 
part,  the  reception  of  II  Bavaro  in  Rome,  which  is  one  of 
the  unique  incidents  in  Roman  history.  It  took  place  in 
May  of  the  following  year,  and  afforded  a  very  striking 
scene  to  the  eager  townsfolk,  never  quite  sure  that  they 
could  tolerate  the  Tedeschi,  though  pleased  with  them  for 
a  novelty  and  willing  enough  to  fight  their  legitimate  lord 
the  Pope  on  behalf  of  the  strangers.  It  was  in  January 
1328  that  Louis  of  Bavaria  made  his  entrance  into  Rome  — 
Sciarra  Colonna  above  named  being  still  Senator,  head  of 
the  Ghibelline  party,  and  the  friend  of  the  new-made  Em- 
peror. After  being  met  at  Viterbo  by  the  Roman  officials 
and  questioned  as  to  his  intentions,  Louis  marched  with  his 
men  into  the  Leonine  city  and  established  himself  for  some 
days  in  what  is  called  the  palace  of  St.  Peter,  the  beginning 
of  the  Vatican,  where,  though  there  was  still  a  party  not 
much  disposed  to  receive  him,  he  was  hailed  with  acclama- 
tions by  the  people,  always  eager  for  a  new  event,  and  not 
unmindful  of  the  liberal  largesse  which  an  Emperor  on  his 
promotion,  and  especially  when  about  to  receive  the  much 
coveted  coronation  in  St.  Peter's,  scattered  around  him. 
Louis  proposed  to  restore  the  city  to  its  ancient  grandeur, 
and  to  promote  its  interests  in  every  way,  and  flattered  the 
people  by  receiving  their  vote  of  approval  on  the  Capitol. 
"Going  up  to  the  Capitol,"  says  Muratori,  "he  caused  an 
oration  to  be  made  to  the  Roman  people  with  many  expres- 
sions of  gratitude  and  praise,  and  with  promises  that  Rome 
should  be  raised  up  to  the  stars."  These  honeyed  words  so 
pleased  the  people  that  he  was  declared  Senator  and  Captain 
of  Rome,  and  in  a  few  days  was  crowned  Emperor  with 
every  appearance  of  solemnity  and  grandeur. 

This  would  seem  to  be  the  first  practical  revival  of  the 
strange  principle  that  Rome,  as  a  city,  not  by  its  Emperor 
nor  by  its  Pope,  but  in  its  own  right,  was  the  fountain  of 


390  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

honour,  the  arbiter  of  the  world  —  everything  in  short  which 
in  classical  times  its  government  was,  and  in  the  mediaeval 
ages,  the  Papacy  wished  to  be.  It  is  curious  to  account  for 
such  an  article  of  belief ;  for  the  populace  of  Rome  had 
never  in  modern  times  possessed  any  of  the  characteristics 
of  a  great  people,  and  was  a  mixed  and  debased  race  accord- 
ing to  all  authorities.  This  theory,  however,  was  now  for  a 
time  to  affect  the  whole  story  of  the  city,  and  put  a  spas- 
modic life  into  her  worn-out  veins.  It  was  the  only  thing 
which  could  have  made  such  a  story  as  that  of  Rienzi  pos- 
sible, and  it  was  strongly  upheld  by  Petrarch  and  other 
eager  and  philosophic  observers.  The  Bavarian  Louis  was, 
however,  the  first  who  frankly  sought  the  confirmation  of 
his  election  from  the  hands  of  the  Roman  people.  One  can- 
not, however,  but  find  certain  features  of  a  farce  in  this 
solemn  ceremony. 

The  coronation  processions  which  passed  through  the 
streets  from  Sta.  Maria  Maggoire,  according  to  Sismondi, 
to  St.  Peter's,  were  splendid,  the  barons  and  counsellors,  or 
buon-homini  of  Rome  leading  the  cortege,  and  clothed  in 
cloth  of  gold.  "  Behind  the  monarch  marched  four  thou- 
sand men  whom  he  had  brought  with  him ;  all  the  streets 
which  he  traversed  were  hung  with  rich  tapestries."  He 
was  accompanied  by  a  lawyer  eminent  in  his  profession,  to 
watch  over  the  perfect  legality  of  every  point  in  the  cere- 
monial. The  well-known  Castruccio  Castracani,  who  had 
followed  him  to  Rome,  was  appointed  by  the  Emperor  to  be 
his  deputy  as  Senator,  and  to  watch  over  the  city ;  and  in 
this  capacity  he  took  his  place  in  the  procession  in  a  tunic 
of  crimson  silk,  embroidered  with  the  words  in  gold  on  the 
breast,  "  He  is  what  God  wills  "  ;  on  the  back,  "  He  will  be 
what  God  pleases.'7  There  was  no  Pope,  it  need  not  be 
said,  to  consecrate  the  new  Emperor.  The  Pope  was  in 
Avignon,  and  his  bitter  enemy.  There  was  not  even  a 
Bishop  of  Ostia  to  present  the  great  monarch  before  St. 


i.]         ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.         391 

Peter  and  the  powers  of  heaven.  Nevertheless  the  Church 
was  not  left  out,  though  it  was  placed  in  a  secondary  posi- 
tion. Some  kind  of  ceremony  was  gone  through  by  the 
Bishop  of  Venice,  or  rather  of  Castello,  the  old  name  of 
that  restless  diocese,  and  the  Bishop  of  Alecia,  both  of  them 
deposed  and  under  excommunication  at  the  moment :  but  it 
was  Sciarra  Colonna  who  put  the  crown  on  Louis's  head. 
The  whole  ceremonial  was  secular,  almost  pagan  in  its  mean- 
ing, if  meaning  at  all  further  than  a  general  throwing  of 
dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  it  could  be  said  to  have.  But 
there  is  a  fictitious  gravity  in  the  proceedings  which  seems 
almost  to  infer  a  sense  of  the  prodigious  folly  of  the  assump- 
tion that  these  quite  incompetent  persons  were  qualified  to 
confer,  without  any  warrant  for  their  deed,  the  greatest 
honour  in  Christendom  upon  the  Bavarian.  John  XXII. 
was  not  a  very  noble  Pope,  but  his  sanction  was  a  very  dif- 
ferent matter  from  that  of  Sciarra  Colonna.  No  doubt 
however  the  people-  of  Rome  —  Lo  Popolo,  the  blind  mob 
so  pulled  about  by  its  leaders,  and  made  to  assume  one 
ridiculous  attitude  after  another  at  their  fancy  —  was  flat- 
tered by  the  idea  that  it  was  from  itself,  as  the  imperial 
city,  that  the  Emperor  took  the  confirmation  of  his  election 
and  his  crown. 

Immediately  afterwards  a  still  more  unjustifiable  act  was 
performed  by  the  Emperor  thus  settled  in  his  imperial  seat. 
Assisted  by  his  excommunicated  bishops  and  his  rebellious 
laymen,  Louis  held,  Muratori  tells  us,  in  the  Piazza  of  St. 
Peter  a  gran  parlamento,  calling  upon  any  one  who  would 
take  upon  him  the  defence  of  Jacques  de  Cahors,  calling 
himself  Pope  John  XXII. ,  to  appear  and  answer  the  accusa- 
tions against  him. 

"  No  one  replied  :  and  then  there  rose  up  the  Syndic  of  that  part  of 
the  Roman  clergy  who  loved  gold  better  than  religion,  and  begged 
Louis  to  take  proceedings  against  the  said  Jacques  de  Cahors.  Various 
articles  were  then  produced  accusing  the  Pope  of  heresy  and  treason, 
and  of  having  raised  the  cross  (i.e.  sent  a  crusade,  probably  the  expe- 


392  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

dition  of  the  Prince  of  the  Morea  in  the  chronicle)  against  the  Romans. 
For  which  reasons  the  Bavarian  declared  Pope  John  to  be  deposed 
from  the  pontificate  and  to  be  guilty  of  heresy  and  treason,  with  vari- 
ous penalties  which  I  leave  without  mention.  On  the  23rd  of  April, 
with  the  consent  of  the  Roman  people,  a  law  was  published  that  every 
Pope  in  the  future  ought  to  hold  his  court  in  Rome,  and  not  to  be 
absent  more  than  three  months  in  the  year  on  pain  of  being  deposed 
from  the  Papacy.  Finally  on  the  twelfth  day  of  May,  in  the  Piazza  of 
San  Pietro,  Louis  with  his  crown  on  his  head,  proposed  to  the  multi- 
tude that  they  should  elect  a  new  Pope.  Pietro  de  Corvara,  a  native 
of  the  Abbruzzi,  of  the  order  of  the  Friars  Minor,  a  great  hypocrite, 
was  proposed :  and  the  people,  the  greater  part  of  whom  hated  Pope 
John  because  he  was  permanently  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps  (de  la 
dai  monti),  accepted  the  nomination.  He  assumed  the  name  of  Nico- 
las V.  Before  his  consecration  there  was  a  promotion  of  seven  false 
cardinals :  and  on  the  22nd  of  May  he  was  consecrated  bishop  by  one 
of  these,  and  afterwards  received  the  Papal  crown  from  the  hands  of 
the  said  Louis,  who  caused  himself  to  be  once  more  crowned  Emperor 
by  this  his  idol. 

"  The  brutality  of  Louis  the  Bavarian  in  arrogating  to  himself  (adds 
Muratori)  the  authority  of  deposing  a  Pope  lawfully  elected,  who  had 
never  fallen  into  heresy  as  was  pretended:  and  to  elect  another,  con- 
trary to  the  rites  and  canons  of  the  Catholic  Church,  sickened  all  who 
had  any  conscience  or  light  of  reason,  and  pleased  only  the  heretics 
and  schismatics,  both  religious  and  secular,  who  filled  the  court  of  the 
Bavarian,  and  by  whose  counsels  he  was  ruled.  Monstrosity  and  im- 
piety could  not  be  better  declared  and  detested.  And  this  was  the 
step  which  completed  the  ruin  of  his  interests  in  Italy." 

The  apparition  of  this  German  court  in  Borne,  with  its 
curious  ceremonials  following  one  upon  another :  the  coro- 
nation in  St.  Peter's,  so  soon  to  be  annulled  by  its  repetition 
at  the  hands  of  the  puppet  Pope  whom  Louis  had  himself 
created,  in  the  vain  hope  that  a  crown  bestowed  by  hands 
nominally  consecrated  would  be  more  real  than  that  given 
by  those  of  Sciarra  Colonna  —  makes  the  most  wonderful 
episode  in  the  turbulent  story.  In  the  same  way  Henry  IV. 
was  crowned  again  and  again  —  first  in  his  tent,  afterwards 
by  his  false  Pope  in  St.  Peter's,  while  Gregory  VII.  looked 
grimly  on  from  St.  Angelo,  a  besieged  and  helpless  refugee, 
yet  in  the  secret  consciousness  of  all  parties  —  the  Emperor's 
supporters  as  well  as  his  own  —  the  only  real  fountain  of 
honour,  the  sole  man  living  from  whom  that  crown  could  be 
received  with  full  sanction  of  law  and  right.  Perhaps  when 


i.]         ROME  IN   THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.         393 

all  is  said,  and  we  have  fully  acknowledged  the  failure  of  all 
the  greater  claims  of  the  Papacy,  we  read  its  importance  in 
these  scenes  more  than  in  the  loftiest  pretensions  of  Gregory 
or  of  Innocent.  II  Bavaro  felt  to  the  bottom  of  his  heart 
that  he  was  no  Emperor  without  the  touch  of  those  conse- 
crated hands.  A  fine  bravado  of  triumphant  citizens  delight- 
ing to  imagine  that  Borne  could  still  confer  all  honours  as 
the  mother  city  of  the  world,  was  well  enough  for  the  popu- 
lace, though  even  for  them  the  excommunicated  bishops  had 
to  be  brought  in  to  lend  a  show  of  authenticity  to  the  unjus- 
tifiable proceedings ;  but  the  uneasy  Teuton  himself  could 
not  be  contented  even  by  this,  and  it  is  to  be  supposed  felt 
that  even  an  anti-pope  was  better  than  nothing.  It  is  tempt- 
ing to  inquire  how  Sciarra  Colonna  felt  when  the  crown  he 
had  put  on  with  such  pride  and  triumph  was  placed  again 
by  the  Neapolitan  monk,  false  Pope  among  false  cardinals, 
articles  $  occasion,  as  the  French  say  —  on  the  head  of  the 
Bavarian.  One  cannot  but  feel  that  it  must  have  been  a 
humiliation  for  Colonna  and  for  the  city  at  this  summit  of 
vainglory  and  temporary  power. 

The  rest  of  the  story  of  Sciarra  and  his  emperor  is  quickly 
told,  so  far  as  Eome  is  concerned.  Louis  of  Bavaria  left  the 
city  in  August  of  the  same  year.  He  had  entered  Eome  in 
January  amid  the  acclamations  of  the  populace :  he  left  it 
seven  months  later  amid  the  hisses  and  abusive  cries  of  the 
same  people,  carrying  with  him  his  anti-pope  and  probably 
Sciarra,  who  at  all  events  took  flight,  his  day  being  over, 
and  died  shortly  after.  Next  day  Stefano  della  Colonna, 
the  true  head  of  the  house,  arrived  in  Eome  with  Bartoldo 
Orsini,  and  took  possession  in  the  name  of  Pope  John,  no 
doubt  with  equal  applause  from  the  crowd  which  so  short  a 
time  before  had  witnessed  breathless  his  deposition,  and 
accepted  the  false  Nicolas  -in  his  place.  Such  was  popular 
government  in  those  days.  The  legate  so  valiantly  defeated 
by  Sciarra,  and  driven  out  of  the  gates  according  to  the 


394  THE  MAKERS   OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

chronicle,  returned  in  state  with  eight  hundred  knights  at 
his  back. 

We  do  not  attempt  to  follow  the  history  further  than  in 
those  scenes  which  show  how  Rome  lived,  struggled,  followed 
the  impulse  of  its  masters,  and  was  flung  from  one  side  to  the 
other  at  their  pleasure,  during  this  period  of  its  history.  The 
wonderful  episode  in  that  history  which  was  about  to  open 
is  better  understood  by  the  light  of  the  events  which 
roused  Lo  Popolo  into  wild  excitement  at  one  moment,  and 
plunged  them  into  disgust  and  discouragement  the  next. 

The  following  scene,  however,  has  nothing  to  do  with  tu- 
mults of  arms.  It  is  a  mere  vignette  from  the  much  illus- 
trated story  of  the  city.  It  relates  the  visit  of  what  we 
should  now  call  a  Revivalist  to  Rome,  a  missionary  friar,  one 
of  those  startling  preachers  who  abounded  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  roused,  as'  almost  always  in  the  history  of  human 
nature,  tempests  of  short-lived  penitence  and  reformation, 
with  but  little  general  effect  even  on  the  religious  story  of 
the  time.  Fra  Venturino  was  a  Dominican  monk  of  Ber- 
gamo, who  had  already  when  he  came  to  Rome  the  fame  of  a 
great  preacher,  and  was  attended  by  a  multitude  of  his  peni- 
tents, dressed  in  white  with  the  sacred  monogram  I.H.S. 
on  the  red  and  white  caps  or  hoods  which  they  wore  on  their 
heads,  and  a  dove  with  an  olive  branch  on  their  breasts. 
They  came  chiefly  from  the  north  of  Italy  and  were,  accord- 
ing to  the  chronicle,  honest  and  pious  persons  of  good  and 
gentle  manners.  They  were  well  received  in  Florence, 
where  many  great  families  took  them  in,  gave  them  good 
food,  good  beds,  washed  their  feet,  and  showed  them  much 
charity.  Then,  with  a  still  larger  contingent  of  Florentines 
following  his  steps,  the  preacher  came  on  to  Rome. 

"  It  was  said  in  Rome  that  he  was  coming  to  convert  the  Romans. 
When  he  arrived  he  was  received  in  San  Sisto.  There  he  preached  to 
his  own  people,  of  whom  there  were  many  orderly  and  good.  In  the 
evening  they  sang  Lauds.  They  had  a  standard  of  silk  which  was 
afterwards  given  to  La  Minerva  (Sta.  Maria  sopra  Minerva).  At  the 


I.]         ROME   IN  THE   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY.         395 

present  day  it  may  still  be  seen  there  in  the  Chapel  of  Messer  Latino. 
It  was  of  green  silk,  long  and  large.  Upon  it  was  painted  the  figure 
of  Sta.  Maria,  with  angels  on  each  side,  playing  upon  viols,  and  St. 
Dominic  and  St.  Peter  Martyr  and  other  prophets.  Afterwards  he 
preached  in  the  Capitol,  and  all  Rome  went  to  hear  him.  The  Romans 
were  very  attentive  to  hear  him,  quiet,  and  following  carefully  if  he 
went  wrong  in  his  bad  Latin.  Then  he  preached  and  said  that  they 
ought  to  take  off  their  shoes,  for  the  place  on  which  they  stood  was 
holy  ground.  And  he  said  that  Rome  was  a  place  of  much  holiness 
from  the  bodies  of  the  saints  who  lay  there,  but  that  the  Romans  were 
wicked  people  :  at  which  the  Romans  laughed.  Then  he  asked  a 
favour  and  a  gift  from  the  Romans.  Fra  Venturino  said, « Sirs,  you 
are  going  to  have  one  of  your  holidays  which  costs  much  money.  It 
is  not  either  for  God  or  the  saints :  therefore  you  celebrate  this  idol- 
atry for  the  service  of  the  Demon.  Give  the  money  to  me.  I  will 
spend  it  for  God  to  men  in  need,  who  cannot  provide  for  themselves.' 
Then  the  Romans  began  to  mock  at  him,  and  to  say  that  he  was  mad : 
thus  they  said  and  that  they  would  stay  no  longer  :  and  rising  up  went 
away  leaving  him  alone.  Afterwards  he  preached  in  San  Giovanni, 
but  the  Romans  would  not  hear  him,  and  would  have  driven  him 
away.  He  then  became  angry  and  cursed  them,  and  said  that  he  had 
never  seen  people  so  perverse.  He  appeared  no  more,  but  departed 
secretly  and  went  to  Avignon,  where  the  Pope  forbade  him  to  preach. ' ' 

We  may  conclude  these  scraps  of  familiar  contemporary 
information  with  a  companion  picture  which  does  not  give  a 
reassuring  view  of  the  state  of  the  Church  in  Koine.  It  is 
the  story  of  a  priest  elected  to  a  great  place  and  dignity 
who  sought  the  confirmation  of  his  election  from  the  Pope 
at  Avignon. 

"A  monk  of  St.  Paolo  in  Rome,  Fra  Monozello  by  name,  who  at 
the  death  of  the  Abbot  had  been  elected  to  fill  his  place,  appeared 
before  Pope  Benedict.  This  monk  was  a  man  who  delighted  in  soci- 
ety, running  about  everywhere,  seeing  the  dawn  come  in,  playing  the 
lute,  a  great  musician  and  singer.  He  spent  his  life  in  a  whirl,  at  the 
court,  at  all  the  weddings,  and  parties  to  the  vineyards.  So  at  least 
said  the  Romans.  How  sad  it  must  have  been  for  Pope  Benedict  to 
hear  that  a  monk  of  his  did  nothing  but  sing  and  dance.  When  this 
man  was  chosen  for  Abbot,  he  appeared  before  the  sanctity  of  the 
Pope  and  said,  '  Holy  Father,  I  have  been  elected  to  San  Paolo  in 
Rome.'  The  Pope,  who  knew  the  condition  of  all  who  came  to  him, 
said,  '  Can  you  sing  ?  '  The  Abbot-elect  replied,  '  I  can  sing.'  The 
Pope,  'I  mean  songs'  (la  cantilena).  The  Abbot-elect  answered,  'I 
know  concerted  songs '  (i7  canzone  sacro) .  The  Pope  asked  again, 
'  Can  you  play  instruments'  (sonare)  ?  He  answered,  « I  can.'  The 
Pope,  '  I  ask  can  you  play  (tonare)  the  organ  and  the  lute  ? '  The 
other  answered,  'Too  well.'  Then  the  Pope  changed  his  tone  and 


396  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

said,  '  Do  you  think  it  is  a  suitable  thing  for  the  Abbot  of  the  vener- 
able monastery  of  San  Paolo  to  be  a  buffoon  ?  Go  about  your 
business.' " 

Thus  it  would  appear  that,  careless  as  they  might  be  and 
full  of  other  thoughts,  the  Popes  in  Avignon  still  kept  a 
watchful  eye  upon  the  Church  at  Rome.  These  are  but 
anecdotes  with  which  the  historian  of  Rienzi  prepares  his 
tragic  story.  They  throw  a  little  familiar  light,  the  Ian- 
thorn  of  a  bystander,  upon  the  town,  so  great  yet  so  petty, 
always  clinging  to  the  pretensions  of  a  greatness  which  it 
could  not  forget,  but  wholly  unworthy  of  that  place  in  the 
world  which  its  remote  fathers  of  antiquity  had  won,  and 
incapable  even  when  a  momentary  power  fell  into  its  hands 
of  using  it,  or  of  perceiving  in  the  midst  of  its  greedy  rush 
at  temporary  advantage  what  its  true  interests  were  — 
insubordinate,  reckless,  unthinking,  ready  to  rush  to  arms 
when  the  great  bell  rang  from  the  Capitol  a  stuormo,  with- 
out pausing  to  ask  which  side  they  were  on,  with  the  Guelf s 
one  day  and  the  Ghibellines  the  next,  shouting  for  the 
Emperor,  yet  terror-stricken  at  the  name  of  the  Pope  — 
obeying  with  surly  reluctance  their  masters  the  barons, 
but  as  ready  as  a  handful  of  tow  to  take  flame,  and  always 
rebellious  whatever  might  be  the  occasion.  This  is  how  the 
Roman  Popolo  of  the  fourteenth  century  appear  through  the 
eyes  of  the  spectators  of  its  strange  ways.  Fierce  to  fight, 
but  completely  without  object  except  a  local  one  for  their 
fighting,  ready  to  rebel  but  always  disgusted  when  made  to 
obey,  entertaining  a  wonderful  idea  of  their  own  claims  by 
right  of  their  classic  descent  and  connection  with  the  great 
names  of  antiquity,  while  on  the  other  hand  they  allowed 
the  noblest  relics  of  those  times  to  crumble  into  irremedi- 
able ruin. 

The  other  Rome,  the  patrician  side,  with  all  its  glitter 
and  splendour  of  the  picturesque,  is  on  the  surface  a  much 
finer  picture.  The  romance  of  the  time  lay  altogether  with 


i.]    ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.    397 

the  noble  houses  which  had  grown  up  in  mediaeval  Rome, 
sometimes  seizing  a  dubious  title  from  an  ancient  Roman 
potentate,  but  most  often  springing  from  some  stronghold 
in  the  adjacent  country  or  the  mountains,  races  which  had 
developed  and  grown  upon  highway  robbery  and  the  op- 
pression of  those  weaker  than  themselves,  yet  always  with 
a  surface  of  chivalry  which  deceived  the  world.  The  family 
which  was  greatest  and  strongest  is  fortunately  the  one  we 
know  most  about.  The  house  of  Colonna  had  the  good 
luck  to  discover  in  his  youth  and  extend  a  warm,  if  con- 
descending, friendship  to  the  poet  Petrarch,  who  was  on  his 
side  the  most  fortunate  poet  who  has  lived  in  modern  ages 
among  men.  He  was  in  the  midst  of  everything  that  went 
on,  to  use  our  familiar  phraseology,  in  his  day  :  he  was  the 
friend  and  correspondent  of  every  notable  person  from  the 
Pope  and  the  Emperor  downward :  only  a  poor  ecclesiastic, 
but  the  best  known  and  most  celebrated  man  of  his  time. 
The  very  first  of  all  his  contemporaries  to  appreciate  and 
divine  what  was  in  him  was  Giacomo  Colonna,  one  of  the 
sons  of  old  Stefano,  whom  we  have  already  seen  in  Rome. 
He  was  Bishop  of  Lombez  in  Gascony,  and  his  elder  brother 
Giovanni  was  a  Cardinal.  They  were  in  the  way  of  every 
preferment  and  advantage,  as  became  the  sons  of  so  power- 
ful a  house,  but  no  promotion  they  attained  has  done  so 
much  for  them  with  posterity  as  their  friendship  with  this 
smooth-faced  young  priest  of  Vaucluse,  to  whom  they  were 
the  kindest  patrons  and  most  faithful  friends. 

Petrarch  was  but  twenty-two,  a  student  at  Bologna  when 
young  Colonna,  a  boy  himself,  took,  as  we  say,  a  fancy  for 
him,  "  not  knowing  who  I  was  or  whence  I  came,  and  only 
by  my  dress  perceiving  that  what  he  was  I  also  was,  a 
scholar."  It  was  in  his  old  age  that  Petrarch  gave  to  an- 
other friend  a  description  of  this  early  patron,  younger 
apparently  than  himself,  who  opened  to  him  the  doors  of 
that  higher  social  life  which  were  not  always  open  to  a 


398  THE   MAKERS   OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

poet,  even  in  those  days  when  the  patronage  of  the  great 
was  everything.  "I  think  there  never  was  a  man  in  the 
world  greater  than  he  or  more  gracious,  more  kind,  more 
able,  more  wise,  more  good,  more  moderate  in  good  fortune, 
more  constant  and  strong  against  adversity,"  he  writes  in 
the  calm  of  his  age,  some  forty  years  after  the  beginning  of 
this  friendship  and  long  after  the  death  of  G-iacomo  Colonna. 
When  the  young  bishop  first  went  to  his  diocese  Petrarch 
accompanied  him.  "  Oh  flying  time,  oh  hurrying  life !  "  he 
cries.  "  Forty -four  years  have  passed  since  then,  but  never 
have  I  spent  so  happy  a  summer."  On  his  return  from  this 
visit  the  bishop  made  his  friend  acquainted  with  his  brother 
Giovanni,  the  Cardinal,  a  man  "good  and  innocent  more 
than  Cardinals  are  wont  to  be."  "  And  the  same  may  be 
said,"  Petrarch  adds,  "  of  the  other  brothers,  and  of  the 
magnanimous  Stefano,  their  father,  of  whom,  as  Crispus 
says  of  Carthage,  it  is  better  to  be  silent  than  to  say  little." 
This  is  a  description  too  good,  perhaps,  to  be  true  of  an 
entire  family,  especially  of  Eoman  nobles  and  ecclesiastics 
in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  between  the  dis- 
orderly and  oppressed  city  of  Home,  and  the  corrupt  court 
of  Avignon :  but  at  least  it  shows  the  other  point  of  view, 
the  different  aspect  which  the  same  man  bears  in  differ- 
ent eyes:  though  Petrarch's  enthusiasm  for  his  matchless 
friends  is  perhaps  as  much  too  exalted  as  the  denunciations 
of  the  populace  and  the  popular  orator  are  excessive  on  the 
other  side. 

It  was  under  this  distinguished  patronage  that  Petrarch 
received  the  great  honour  of  his  life,  the  laurel  crown  of  the 
Altissimo  Poeta,  and  furnished  another  splendid  scene  to  the 
many  which  had  taken  place  in  Rome  in  the  midst  of  all  her 
troubles  and  distractions.  The  offer  of  this  honour  came 
to  him  at  the  same  time  from  Paris  and  Rome,  and  it  was 
to  Cardinal  Giovanni  that  he  referred  the  question  which 
he  should  accept :  and  he  was  surrounded  by  the  Colonnas 


i.]    ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.    399 

when  he  appeared  at  the  Capitol  to  receive  his  crown.  The 
Senator  of  the  year  was  Orso,  Conte  d'Anquillara,  who 
was  the  son-in-law  of  old  Stefano  Colonna,  the  husband  of 
his  daughter  Agnes.  The  ceremony  took  place  on  Easter 
Sunday  in  the  year  1341,  the  last  day  of  Anquillara's  office, 
and  so  settled  by  him  in  order  that  he  might  himself  have 
the  privilege  of  placing  the  laurel  on  the  poet's  head. 
Petrarch  gives  an  account  of  the  ceremony  to  his  other 
patron  King  Robert  of  Naples,  attributing  this  honour  to  the 
approbation  and  friendship  of  that  monarch  —  which  perhaps 
is  a  thing  necessary  when  any  personage  so  great  as  a  king 
interests  himself  in  the  glory  of  a  poet.  "  Rome  and  the 
deserted  palace  of  the  Capitol  were  adorned  with  unusual 
delight,"  he  says :  "  a  small  thing  in  itself  one  might  say, 
but  conspicuous  by  its  novelty,  and  by  the  applause  and 
pleasure  of  the  Roman  people,  the  custom  of  bestowing  the 
laurel  having  not  only  been  laid  aside  for  many  ages,  but 
even  forgotten,  while  the  republic  turned  its  thoughts  to 
very  different  things  —  until  now  under  thy  auspices  it  was 
renewed  in  my  person."  "On  the  Capitol  of  Borne,"  the 
poet  wrote  to  another  correspondent,  "with  a  great  con- 
course of  people  and  immense  joy,  that  which  the  king 
in  Naples  had  decreed  for  me  was  executed.  Orso  Count 
d'Anquillara,  Senator,  a  person  of  the  highest  intelligence, 
decorated  me  with  the  laurel:  all  went  better  than  could 
have  been  believed  or  hoped,"  he  adds,  notwithstanding  the 
absence  of  the  King  and  of  various  great  persons  named  — 
though  among  these  Petrarch,  with  a  policy  and  knowledge 
of  the  world  which  never  failed  him,  does  not  name  to  his 
Neapolitan  friends  Cardinal  Giovanni  and  Bishop  Giacomo, 
the  dearest  of  his  companions,  and  his  first  and  most  faith- 
ful patrons,  neither  of  whom  were  able  to  be  present.  Their 
family,  however,  evidently  took  the  lead  on  this  great  occa- 
sion. Their  brother  Stefano  pronounced  an  oration  in 
honour  of  the  laureate:  he  was  crowned  by  their  brother- 


400  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

in-law :  and  the  great  celebration  culminated  in  a  banquet 
in  the  Colonna  palace,  at  which,  no  doubt,  the  father  of  all 
presided,  with  Colonnas  young  and  old  filling  every  corner. 
For  they  were  a  most  abundant  family  —  sons  and  grand- 
sons, Stefanos  and  Jannis  without  end,  young  ones  of  all 
the  united  families,  enough  to  fill  almost  a  whole  quarter 
of  Rome  themselves  and  their  retainers.  "Their  houses 
extended  from  the  square  of  San  Marcello  to  the  Santi 
Apostoli,"  says  Papencordt,  the  modern  biographer  of 
Eienzi.  The  ancient  Mausoleum  of  Augustus,  which  has 
been  put  to  so  many  uses,  which  was  a  theatre  not  very  long 
ago,  and  is  now,  we  believe  a  museum,  was  once  the  head- 
quarters and  stronghold  of  the  house. 

This  ceremonial  of  the  crowning  of  the  poet  was  con- 
ducted with  immense  joy  of  the  people,  endless  applause, 
a  great  concourse,  and  every  splendour  that  was  possible. 
So  was  the  reception  of  II  Bavaro  a  few  years  before ;  so 
were  the  other  strange  scenes  about  to  come.  The  popu- 
lace was  always  ready  to  form  a  great  concourse,  to  shout 
and  applaud,  notwithstanding  its  own  often  miserable  condi- 
tion, exposed  to  every  outrage,  and  finding*  justice  nowhere. 
But  the  reverse  of  the  medal  was  not  so  attractive.  Petrarch 
himself,  departing  from  Eome  with  still  the  intoxicating 
applause  of  the  city  ringing  in  his  ears,  was  scarcely  out- 
side the  walls  before  he  and  his  party  fell  into  the  hands  of 
armed  robbers.  It  would  be  too  long  to  tell,  he  says,  how 
he  got  free ;  but  he  was  driven  back  to  Eome,  whence  he 
set  out  again  next  day,  "  surrounded  by  a  good  escort  of 
armed  men."  The  ladroni  armati  who  stopped  the  way 
might,  for  all  one  knows,  wear  the  badge  of  the  Colonnas 
somewhere  under  their  armour,  or  at  least  find  refuge  in 
some  of  their  strongholds.  Such  were  the  manners  of  the 
time,  and  such  was  specially  the  condition  of  Eome.  It 
gave  the  crown  of  fame  to  the  poet,  but  could  not  secure 
him  a  safe  passage  for  a  mile  outside  its  gates.  It  still  put 


I.]    ROME  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.    401 

forth,  pretensions,  as  on  this,  so  in  more  important  cases,  to 
exercise  an  authority  over  all  the  nations,  by  which  right  it 
had  pleased  the  city  to  give  Louis  of  Bavaria  the  imperial 
crown ;  but  no  citizen  was  safe  unless  he  could  protect  him- 
self with  his  sword,  and  justice  and  the  redress  of  wrong 
were  things  unknown. 

2D 


ON   THE   PINCIO. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE    DELIVERER. 

IT  was  in  this  age  of  disorder  and  anarchy  that  a  child 
was  born,  of  the  humblest  parentage,  on  the  bank  of 
the  Tiber,  in  an  out-of-the-way  suburb,  who  was  destined  to 
become  the  hero  of  one  of  the  strangest  episodes  of  modern 
history.  His  father  kept  a  little  tavern  to  which  the 
Roman  burghers,  pushing  their  walk  a  little  beyond  the 
walls,  would  naturally  resort ;  his  mother,  a  laundress  and 
water-carrier  —  one  of  those  women  who,  with  the  port  of  a 
classical  princess,  balance  on  their  heads  in  perfect  poise 
and  certainty  the  great  copper  vases  which  are  still  used 
for  that  purpose.  It  was  the  gossip  of  the  time  that  Mad- 
dalena,  the  wife  of  Lorenzo,  had  not  been  without  advent- 
ures in  her  youth.  No  less  a  person  than  Henry  VII.  had 
found  shelter,  it  was  said,  in  her  little  public-house  when 
her  husband  was  absent.  He  was  in  the  dress  of  a  pilgrim, 
but  no  doubt  bore  the  mien  of  a  gallant  gentleman  and  daz- 
zled the  eyes  of  the  young  landlady,  who  had  no  one  to 

402 


CH.  ii.]  THE    DELIVERER.  403 

protect  her.  When  her  son  was  a  man  it  pleased  him  to 
suppose  that  from  this  meeting  resulted  the  strange  mixt- 
ure of  democratic  enthusiasm  and  love  of  pomp  and  power 
which  was  in  his  own  nature.  It  was  not  much  to  be  proud 
of,  and  yet  he  was  proud  of  it.  For  all  the  world  he  was 
the  son  of  the  poor  innkeeper,  but  within  himself  he  felt 
the  blood  of  an  Emperor  in  his  veins.  Maddalena  died 
young,  and  when  her  son  began  to  weave  the  visions  which 
helped  to  shape  his  life,  was  no  longer  there  to  clear  her 
own  reputation  or  to  confirm  him  in  his  dream. 

These  poor  people  had  not  so  much  as  a  surname  to 
distinguish  them.  The  boy  Niccola  was  Cola  di  Rienzo, 
Nicolas  the  son  of  Laurence,  as  he  is  called  in  the  Latin 
chronicles,  according  to  that  simplest  of  all  rules  of  nomen- 
clature which  has  originated  so  many  modem  names.  "He 
was  from  his  youth  nourished  on  the  milk  of  eloquence ;  a 
good  grammarian,  a  better  rhetorician,  a  fine  writer,"  says 
his  biographer.  "Heavens,  what  a  rapid  reader  he  was! 
He  made  great  use  of  Livy,  Seneca,  Tully,  and  Valerius 
Maximus,  and  delighted  much  to  tell  forth  the  magnificence 
of  Julius  Caesar.  All  day  long  he  studied  the  sculptured 
marbles  that  lie  around  Rome.  There  was  no  one  like  him 
for  reading  the  ancient  inscriptions.  All  the  ancient  writ- 
ings he  put  in  choice  Italian;  the  marbles  he  interpreted. 
How  often  did  he  cry  out,  '  Where  are  these  good  Romans  ? 
where  is  their  high  justice  ?  might  I  but  have  been  born  in 
their  time  ? '  He  was  a  handsome  man,  and  he  adopted  the 
profession  of  a  notary." 

We  are  not  told  how  or  where  Cola  attained  this  knowl- 
edge. His  father  was  a  vassal  of  the  Colonna,  and  it  is 
possible  that  some  of  the  barons  coming  and  going  may 
have  been  struck  by  the  brilliant,  eager  countenance  of 
the  innkeeper's  son,  and  helped  him  to  the  not  extravagant 
amount  of  learning  thus  recorded.  His  own  character,  and 
the  energy  and  ambition  so  strangely  mingled  with  imagi- 


404  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

nation  and  the  visionary  temperament  of  a  poet,  would  seem 
to  have  at  once  separated  him  from  the  humble  world  in 
which  he  was  born.  It  is  said  by  some  that  his  youth  was 
spent  out  of  Eome,  and  that  he  only  returned  when  about 
twenty,  at  the  death  of  his  father  —  a  legend  which  would 
lend  some  show  of  evidence  to  the  suggestion  of  his  doubt- 
ful birth:  but  his  biographer  says  nothing  of  this.  It  is 
also  said  that  it  was  the  death  of  his  brother,  killed  in  some 
scuffle  between  the  ever-contending  parties  of  Colonna  and 
Orsini,  which  gave  his  mind  the  first  impulse  towards  the 
revolution  which  he  accomplished  in  so  remarkable  a  way. 
"He  pondered  long,"  says  his  biographer,  "of  revenging 
the  blood  of  his  brother;  and  long  he  pondered  over  the 
ill-governed  city  of  Eome,  and  how  to  set  it  right."  But 
there  is  no  definite  record  of  his  early  life  until  it  suddenly 
flashes  into  light  in  the  public  service  of  the  city,  and  on  an 
occasion  of  the  greatest  importance  as  well  for  himself  as 
for  Eome. 

This  first  public  employment  which  discloses  him  at  once 
to  us  was  a  mission  from  the  thirteen  Buoni  homini,  some- 
times called  Caporoni,  the  heads  of  the  different  districts  of 
the  city,  to  Pope  Clement  VI.  at  Avignon,  on  the  occasion 
of  one  of  those  temporary  overturns  of  government  which 
occurred  from  time  to  time,  always  of  the  briefest  duration, 
but  carrying  on  the  traditions  of  the  power  of  the  people 
from  age  to  age.  He  was  apparently  what  we  should  call 
the  spokesman  of  the  deputation  sent  to  explain  the  matter 
to  the  Pope,  and  to  secure,  if  possible,  some  attention  on 
the  part  of  the  Curia  to  the  condition  of  the  abandoned  city. 

"  His  eloquence  was  so  great  that  Pope  Clement  was  much  attracted 
towards  him  :  the  Pope  much  admired  the  fine  style  of  Cola,  and  de- 
sired to  see  him  every  day.  Upon  which  Cola  spoke  very  freely  and  said 
that  the  Barons  of  Rome  were  highway  robbers,  that  they  were  con- 
senting to  murder,  robbery,  adultery,  and  every  evil.  He  said  that  the 
city  lay  desolate,  and  the  Pope  began  to  entertain  a  very  bad  opinion  of 
the  Barons." 


ii.]  THE   DELIVERER.  405 

"But,"  adds  the  chronicler,  "by  means  of  Messer  Gio- 
vanni of  the  Colonna,  Cardinal,  great  misfortunes  happened 
to  him,  and  he  was  reduced  to  such  poverty  and  sickness 
that  he  might  as  well  have  been  sent  to  the  hospital.  He 
lay  like  a  snake  in  the  sun.  But  he  who  had  cast  him 
down,  the  very  same  person  raised  him  up  again.  Messer 
Giovanni  brought  him  again  before  the  Pope  and  had  him 
restored  to  favour.  And  having  thus  been  restored  to  grace 
he  was  made  notary  of  the  Cammora  in  Rome,  so  that  he 
returned  with  great  joy  to  the  city." 

This  succinct  narrative  will  perhaps  be  a  little  more 
clear  if  slightly  expanded :  the  chief  object  of  the  Roman 
envoy  was  to  disclose  the  crimes  of  the  "  barons,"  whose  true 
character  Cola  thus  described  to  the  Pope,  on  the  part  of  the 
leaders  of  a  sudden  revolt,  a  sort  of  prophetical  anticipation 
of  his  own,  which  had  seized  the  power  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  two  Senators  and  conferred  it  upon  thirteen  Buoni 
homini,  heads  of  the  people,  who  took  the  charge  in  the  name 
of  the  Pope  and  professed,  as  was  usual  in  its  absence,  an 
almost  extravagant  devotion  to  the  Papal  authority.  The 
embassy  was  specially  charged  with  the  prayers  and  en- 
treaties of  the  people  that  the  Pope  would  return  and 
resume  the  government  of  the  city  :  and  also  that  he  would 
proclaim  another  jubilee  —  the  great  festival,  accompanied 
by  every  kind  of  indulgence  and  pious  promise  to  the  pil- 
grims, attracted  by  it  from  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  Rome 
—  which  had  been  first  instituted  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII. 
in  1300  with  the  intention  of  being  repeated  once  every  cen- 
tury only.  But  a  century  is  a  long  time ;  and  the  jubilee 
was  most  profitable,  bringing  much  money  and  many  gifts 
both  to  the  State  and  the  Church.  The  ci^zens  were  there- 
fore very  anxious  to  secure  its  repetition  in  1350,  and  its 
future  celebration  every  fifty  years.  The  Pope  graciously 
accorded  the  jubilee  to  the  prayers  of  the  Romans,  and 
accepted  their  homage  and  desire  for  his  return,  promising 


406  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

vaguely  that  he  would  do  so  in  the  jubilee  year  if  not  before. 
So  that  whatever  afterwards  happened  to  the  secretary  or 
spokesman,  the  object  of  the  mission  was  attained. 

Elated  by  this  fulfilment  of  their  wishes,  and  evidently  at 
the  moment  of  his  highest  favour  with  the  Pope,  Cola  sent 
a  letter  announcing  this  success  to  the  authorities  in  Rome, 
which  is  the  first  word  we  hear  from  his  own  mouth.  It  is 
dated  from  Avignon,  in  the  year  1343.  He  was  then  about 
thirty,  in  the  full  ardour  of  young  manhood,  full  of  visionary 
hopes  and  schemes  for  the  restoration  of  the  glories  of 
Eome.  The  style  of  the  letter,  which  was  so  much  admired 
in  those  days,  is  too  florid  and  ornate  for  the  taste  of  a 
severer  period,  notwithstanding  that  his  composition  re- 
ceived the  applause  of  Petrarch,  and  was  much  admired  by 
all  his  contemporaries.  He  begins  by  describing  himself 
as  the  "consul  of  orphans,  widows  and  the  poor,  and  the 
humble  messenger  of  the  people." 

"Let  your  mountains  tremble  with  happiness,  let  your  hills  clothe 
themselves  with  joy,  and  peace  and  gladness  fill  the  valleys.  Let  the 
city  arise  from  her  long  course  of  misfortunes,  let  her  re-ascend  the 
throne  of  her  ancient  magnificence,  let  her  throw  aside  the  weeds  of 
widowhood  and  clothe  herself  with  the  garments  of  a  bride.  For  the 
heavens  have  been  opened  to  us  and  from  the  glory  of  the  Heavenly 
Father  has  issued  the  light  of  Jesus  Christ,  from  which  shines  forth 
that  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Now  that  the  Lord  has  done  this  miracle, 
brethren  beloved,  see  that  you  clear  out  of  your  city  the  thorns  and 
the  roots  of  vice,  to  receive  with  the  perfume  of  new  virtue  the  Bride- 
groom who  is  coming.  We  exhort  you  with  burning  tears,  with  tears 
of  joy,  to  put  aside  the  sword,  to  extinguish  the  flames  of  battle,  to 
receive  these  divine  gifts  with  a  heart  full  of  purity  and  gratitude,  to 
glorify  with  songs  and  thanksgiving  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  also  to  give  humble  thanks  to  His  Vicar,  and  to  raise  to  that  su- 
preme Pontiff,  in  the  Capitol  or  in  the  amphitheatre,  a  statue  adorned 
with  purple  and  gold  that  the  joyous  and  glorious  recollection  may 
endure  for  ever.  Who  indeed  has  adorned  his  country  with  such 
glory  among  the  Ciceros,  the  Csesars,  Metullus,  or  Fabius,  who  are 
celebrated  as  liberators  in  our  old  annals  and  whose  statues  we  adorn 
with  precious  stones  because  of  their  virtues  ?  These  men  have  ob- 
tained passing  triumphs  by  war,  by  the  calamities  of  the  world,  by  the 
shedding  of  blood :  but  he,  by  our  prayers  and  for  the  life,  the  salva- 
tion and  the  joy  of  all,  has  won  in  our  eyes  and  in  those  of  posterity 
an  immortal  triumph." 


THEATRE  OF  MARCELLUS. 


To  face  page  406. 


ii.]  THE  DELIVERER.  409 

It  is  like  enough  that  these  extravagant  phrases  expressed 
an  exultation  which  was  sufficiently  genuine  and  sincere ; 
for  while  he  was  absent  the  city  of  Rome  desired  and  longed 
for  its  Pope,  although  when  present  it  might  do  everything 
in  its  power  to  shake  off  his  yoke.  And  Cola  the  ambassa- 
dor, in  whose  mind  as  yet  his  own  great  scheme  had  not 
taken  shape,  might  well  believe  that  the  gracious  Pope  who 
nattered  him  by  such  attention,  who  admitted  him  so  freely 
to  his  august  presence,  and  to  whom  he  was  as  one  who 
playeth  very  sweetly  upon  an  instrument,  was  the  man  of 
all  men  to  bring  back  again  from  anarcny  and  tumult  the 
imperial  city.  He  had  even  given  up,  it  would  seem,  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  classic  heroes  in  this  moment  of  hope 
from  a  more  living  and  present  source  of  help. 

This  elation  however  did  not  last.  The  Cardinal  Giovanni 
Colonna,  son  of  old  Stefano,  the  head  of  that  great  house,  of 
whose  magnificent  old  age  Petrarch  speaks  with  so  much 
enthusiasm,  himself  a  man  of  many  accomplishments,  a 
scholar  and  patron  of  the  arts  —  and  to  crown  all,  as  has 
been  said,  the  dear  friend  and  patron  of  the  poet  —  was  one 
of  the  most  important  members  of  the  court  at  Avignon, 
when  the  deputation  from  Rome,  with  that  eloquent  young 
plebeian  as  its  interpreter,  appeared  before  the  Pope.  We 
may  imagine  that  its  first  great  success,  and  the  pleasure 
which  the  Pope  took  in  the  conversation  of  Cola,  must  have 
happened  during  some  temporary  absence  of  the  Cardinal, 
whose  interest  in  the  affairs  of  his  native  city  would  be 
undoubted.  And  it  was  natural  that  he  should  be  a  little 
scornful  of  the  ambassadors  of  the  people,  and  of  the  orator 
who  was  the  son  of  Rienzo  of  the  wine-shop,  and  very  indig- 
nant at  the  account  given  by  the  advocate  of  lo  Popolo,  of 
the  barons  and  their  behaviour.  The  Colonna  were,  in  fact, 
the  least  tyrannical  of  the  tyrants  ;  they  were  the  noblest  of 
all  the  Roman  houses,  and  no  doubt  the  public  sentiment 
against  the  nobles  in  general  might  sometimes  do  a  more 


410  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

enlightened  family  wrong.  Certainly  it  is  hard  to  reconcile 
the  pictures  of  this  house  as  given  by  Petrarch  with  the  cruel 
tyranny  of  which  all  the  nobles  were  accused.  This  no  doubt 
was  the  reason  why,  after  the  trium'ph  of  that  letter,  the 
consent  of  the  Pope  to  the  prayer  of  the  citizens,  and  his 
interest  in  Cola's  tale  and  descriptions,  the  young  orator  fell 
under  the  shadow  of  courtly  displeasure,  and  after  that 
intoxication  of  victory  suffered  all  those  pangs  of  neglect 
which  so  often  end  the  temporary  triumph  of  a  success  at 
court.  The  story  is  all  vague,  and  we  have  no  explanation 
why  he  should  have  lingered  on  in  Avignon,  unless  perhaps 
with  hopes  of  advancement  founded  on  that  evanescent 
favour,  or  perhaps  in  consequence  of  his  illness.  There  is 
a  forlorn  touch  in  the  description  of  the  chronicler  that  "  he 
lay  like  a  snake  in  the  sun,"  which  is  full  of  suggestion. 
The  reader  seems  to  see  him  hanging  about  the  precincts  of 
the  court  under  the  stately  walls  of  the  vast  Papal  palace, 
which  now  stands  in  gloomy  greatness,  absorbing  all  the 
light  out  of  the  landscape.  It  was  new  then,  and  glorious 
like  a  heavenly  palace ;  and  sick  and  sad,  disappointed  and 
discouraged,  the  young  envoy,  lately  so  dazzled  by  the  sun- 
shine of  favour,  would  no  doubt  haunt  the  great  doorway, 
seeking  a  sunny  spot  to  keep  himself  warm,  and  waiting 
upon  Providence.  Probably  the  Cardinal,  sweeping  out  and 
in,  in  his  state,  might  perceive  the  young  Roman  fallen  from 
his  temporary  triumph,  and  be  touched  by  pity  for  the 
orator  who  after  all  had  done  no  harm  with  his  pleading ; 
for  was  not  Stefano  Colonna  again,  in  spite  of  all,  Senator  of 
Borne  ?  Let  us  hope  that  the  companion  at  his  elbow,  the 
poet  who  formed  part  of  his  household,  and  who  probably 
had  heard,  too,  and  admired,  like  Pope  Clement,  the  parole 
ornate  of  the  speaker,  who,  though  so  foolish  as  to  assail 
with  his  eloquent  tongue  the  nobles  of  the  land,  need  not 
after  all  be  left  to  perish  on  that  account  —  was  the  person 
who  pointed  out  to  his  patron  the  poor  fellow  in  his  cloak, 


ii.]  THE  DELIVERER.  411 

shivering  in  the  mistral,  that  chill  wind  unknown  in  the 
midlands  of  Italy.  It  is  certain  that  Petrarch  here  made 
Cola's  acquaintance,  and  that  Cardinal  Colonna,  remorseful 
to  see  the  misery  he  had  caused,  took  trouble  to  have  his 
young  countryman  restored  to  favour,  and  procured  him  the 
appointment  of  Notary  of  the  city,  with  which  Cola  returned 
to  Rome  —  "fra  i  denti  minacciava,"  says  his  biographer, 
swearing  between  his  teeth. 

It  was  in  1344  that  his  promotion  took  place,  and  for 
some  years  after  Cola  performed  the  duties  of  his  office  cor- 
tesemente,  with  courtesy,  the  highest  praise  an  Italian  of  his 
time  could  give.  In  this  occupation  he  had  boundless  oppor- 
tunities of  studying  more  closely  the  system  of  government 
which  had  resumed  its  full  sway  under  the  old  familiar  suc- 
cession of  Senators,  generally  a  Colonna  and  an  Orsini. 
"  He  saw  and  knew,"  says  the  chronicler,  himself  growing 
vehement  in  the  excitement  of  the  subject,  "the  robbery 
of  those  dogs  of  the  Capitol,  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of 
those  in  power.  In  all  the  commune  he  did  not  find  one 
good  citizen  who  would  render  help."  It  would  seem,  though 
there  is  here  little  aid  of  dates,  that  he  did  not  act  precipi- 
tately, but,  probably  with  the  hope  of  being  able  himself 
to  do  something  to  remedy  matters,  kept  silence  while  his 
heart  burned,  as  long  as  silence  was  possible.  But  the 
moment  came  when  he  could  do  so  no  longer,  and  the  little 
scene  at  the  meeting  of  the  Cammora,  the  City  Council, 
stands  out  as  clearly  before  us  as  if  it  had  been  a  municipal 
assembly  of  the  present  day.  We  are  not  told  what  special 
question  was  before  the  meeting  which  proved  the  last 
straw  of  the  burden  of  indignation  and  impatience  which 
Cola  at  his  table,  writing  with  the  silver  pen  which  he 
thought  more  worthy  than  a  goose  quill  for  the  dignity  of 
his  office,  had  to  bear.  (One  wonders  if  he  was  the  inventor, 
without  knowing  it,  of  that  little  instrument,  the  artificial 
pen  of  metal  with  which,  chiefly,  literature  is  manufactured 


412  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

in  our  days  ?  But  silver  is  too  soft  and  ductile  to  have 
ever  become  popular,  and  though  very  suitable  to  pour  forth 
those  mellifluous  sentences  in  which  the  young  spokesman 
of  the  Romans  wrote  to  his  chiefs  from  Avignon,  would 
scarcely  answer  for  the  sterner  purposes  of  the  council  to 
inscribe  punishments  or  calculate  fines  withal.)  One  day, 
however,  sitting  in  his  place,  writing  down  the  decrees  for 
those  fines  and  penalties,  sudden  wrath  seized  upon  the 
young  scribe  who  already  had  called  himself  the  consul  of 
widows  and  orphans,  and  of  the  poor. 

"  One  day  during  a  discussion  on  the  subject  of  the  taxes  of  Rome, 
he  rose  to  his  feet  among  all  the  Councillors  and  said,  '  You  are  not 
good  citizens,  you  who  suck  the  blood  of  the  poor  and  will  not  give 
them  any  help.'  Then  he  admonished  the  officials  and  the  Rectors 
that  they  ought  rather  to  provide  for  the  good  government,  lo  buono 
stato,  of  their  city  of  Rome.  When  the  impetuous  address  of  Cola 
di  Rienzi  was  ended,  one  of  the  Colonna,  who  was  called  Andreozzo 
di  Normanno,  the  Camarlengo,  got  up  and  struck  him  a  ringing  blow 
on  the  cheek:  and  another  who  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate, 
Tomma  de  Eortifiocca,  mocked  him  with  an  insulting  sign.  This  was 
the  end  of  their  talking." 

We  hear  of  no  more  remonstrances  in  the  council.  It  is 
said  that  Cola  was  not  a  brave  man,  though  we  have  so  many 
proofs  of  courage  afterwards  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
him  to  have  been  lacking  in  this  particular.  At  all  events 
he  went  out  from  that  selfish  and  mocking  assembly  with  his 
cheek  tingling  from  the  blow,  and  his  heart  burning  more 
and  more,  to  ponder  over  other  means  of  moving  the  com- 
munity and  helping  Rome. 

The  next  incident  opens  up  to  us  a  curious  world  of  sur- 
mise, and  suggests  to  the  imagination  much  that  is  unknown, 
in  the  lower  regions  of  art,  a  crowd  of  secondary  performers 
in  that  arena,  the  unknown  painters,  the  half-workmen, 
half-artists,  who  form,  a  background  wherever  a  school  of 
art  exists.  Cola  perhaps  may  have  had  relations  with  some 
of  these  half-developed  artists,  not  sufficiently  advanced  to 
paint  an  altar-piece,  the  scholars  or  lesser  brethren  of  some 


ii.]  THE   DELIVERER.  413 

local  bottega.  There  was  little  native  art  at  any  time  in 
Borne.  The  ancient  and  but  dimly  recorded  work  of  the 
Cosimati,  the  only  Roman  school,  is  lost  in  the  mists,  and 
was  over  and  ended  in  the  fourteenth  century.  But  there 
must  have  been  some  humble  survival  of  trained  workmen 
capable  at  least  of  mural  decorations  if  no  more.  Pondering 
long  how  to  reach  the  public,  Cola  seems  to  have  bethought 
himself  of  this  humble  instrument  of  art.  As  we  do  not 
hear  before  of  any  such  method  of  instructing  the  people, 
we  may  be  allowed  to  suppose  it  was  his  invention  as  well 
as  the  silver  pen.  His  active  brain  was  buzzing  with  new 
things  in  every  way,  both  great  and  small,  and  this  was  the 
first  device  he  hit  upon.  Even  the  poorest  art  must  have 
been  of  use  in  the  absence  of  books  for  the  illustration  of 
sacred  story  and  the  instruction  of  the  ignorant,  and  it  was 
at  this  kind  of  instantaneous  effect  that  Cola  aimed.  He 
had  the  confidence  of  the  visionary  that  the  evil  state  of 
affairs  needed  only  to  be  known  to  produce  instant  reforma- 
tion. The  grievance  over  and  over  again  insisted  upon  by 
his  biographer,  and  which  was  the  burden  of  his  outburst  in 
the  council,  was  that  "  no  one  would  help  "  —  non  si  trovava 
uno  buon  Cittatino,  che  lo  volesse  adjutare.  Did  they  but 
know,  the  common  people,  how  they  were  oppressed,  and  the 
nobles  what  oppressors  they  were,  it  was  surely  certain  that 
every  one  would  help,  and  that  all  would  go  right,  and  the 
buono  stato  be  established  once  more. 

Here  is  the  strange  way  in  which  Cola  for  the  first  time 
publicly  "admonished  the  rectors  and  the  people  to  do 
well,  by  a  similitude." 

"  A  similitude,"  says  his  biographer,  "  which  he  caused  to  be  painted 
on  the  palace  of  the  Capitol  in  front  of  the  market,  on  the  wall  above 
the  Cammora  (Council  Chamber).  Here  was  painted  an  allegory  in 
the  following  form  —  namely,  a  great  sea  with  horrible  waves,  and 
much  disturbed.  In  the  midst  of  this  sea  was  a  ship,  almost  wrecked, 
without  helm  or  sails.  In  this  ship,  in  great  peril,  was  a  woman,  a 
widow,  clothed  in  black,  bound  with  a  girdle  of  sadness,  her  face  dis- 
figured, her  hair  floating  wildly,  as  if  she  would  have  wept.  She  was 


414  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

kneeling,  her  hands  crossed,  beating  her  breast  and  ready  to  perish. 
The  superscription  over  her  was  This  is  Home.  Round  this  ship  were 
four  other  ships  wrecked:  their  sails  torn  away,  their  oars  broken, 
their  rudders  lost.  In  each  one  was  a  woman  smothered  and  dead. 
The  first  was  called  Babylon  ;  the  second  Carthage  ;  the  third  Troy  ; 
the  fourth  Jerusalem.  Written  above  was :  These  cities  by  injustice 
perished  and  came  to  nothing.  A  label  proceeding  from  the  women 
dead  bore  the  lines  : 

'  Once  were  we  raised  o'er  lords  and  rulers  all, 
And  now  we  wait,  Oh  Rome,  to  see  thee  fall.' 

4 '  On  the  left  hand  were  two  islands :  on  one  of  these  was  a  woman 
sitting  shamefaced  with  an  inscription  over  her  This  is  Italy.  And 
she  spoke  and  said : 

'  Once  had'st  thou  power  o'er  every  land, 
I  only  now,  thy  sister,  hold  thy  hand.' 

"On  the  other  island  were  four  women,  with  their  hands  at  their 
throats,  kneeling  on  their  knees,  in  great  sadness,  and  speaking  thus  r 

'  By  many  virtues  once  accompanied 
Thou  on  the  sea  goest  now  abandoned.' 

"These  were  the  four  Cardinal  virtues,  Temperance,  Justice,  Pru- 
dence and  Fortitude.  On  the  other  side  was  another  little  isle,  and  on 
this  islet  was  a  woman  kneeling,  her  hands  stretched  out  to  heaven  as 
if  she  prayed.  She  was  clothed  in  white  and  her  name  was  Christian 
Faith :  and  this  is  what  her  verse  said : 

'  Oh  noblest  Father,  lord  and  leader  mine, 
Where  shall  I  be  if  Rome  sink  and  decline? ' 

"  Above  on  the  right  of  the  picture  were  four  kinds  of  winged  creat- 
ures who  breathed  and  blew  upon  the  sea,  creating  a  storm  and  driving 
the  sinking  ship  that  it  might  perish.  The  first  order  were  Lions, 
Wolves,  and  Bears,  and  were  thus  labelled :  These  are  the  powerful 
Barons  and  tne  wicked  Officials.  The  second  order  were  Dogs,  Pigs, 
and  Goats,  and  over  them  was  written :  These  are  the  evil  counsellors, 
the  followers  of  the  nobles.  The  third  order  were  Sheep,  Goats,  and 
Foxes,  and  the  label :  These  are  the  false  officials,  Judges  and  Notaries. 
The  fourth  order  were  Hares,  Cats,  and  Monkeys,  and  their  label : 
These  are  the  People,  Thieves,  Murderers,  Adulterers,  and  Spoilers  of 
Men.  Above  was  the  sky :  in  the  midst  the  Majesty  Divine  as  though 
coming  to  Judgment,  two  swords  coming  from  His  mouth.  On  one 
side  stood  St.  Peter,  and  on  the  other  St.  Paul  praying.  When  the 
people  saw  this  similitude  with  these  figures  every  one  marvelled." 

Who  painted  this  strange  allegory,  and  how  the  work  could 
be  done  in  secret,  in  such  a  public  place,  so  as  to  be  suddenly 
revealed  as  a  surprise  to  the  astonished  crowd,  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing.  It  would  be,  no  doubt,  of  the  rudest  art, 


ii.]  THE   DELIVERER.  415 

probably  such  a  scroll  as  might  be  printed  off  in  a  hundred 
examples  and  pasted  on  the  walls  by  our  readier  methods, 
not  much  above  the  original  drawings  of  our  pavements. 
We  can  imagine  the  simplicity  of  the  symbolism,  the  agi- 
tated sea  in  curved  lines,  the  galleys  dropping  out  of  the 
picture,  the  symbolical  figures  with  their  mottoes.  The 
painting  must  have  been  executed  by  the  light  of  early  dawn, 
or  under  cover  of  some  license  to  which  Cola  himself  as  an 
official  had  a  right,  perhaps  behind  the  veil  of  a  scaffolding 
—  put  up  on  some  pretence  of  necessary  repairs :  and  sud- 
denly blazing  forth  upon  the  people  in  the  brightness  of 
the  morning,  when  the  early  life  of  Rome  began  again,  and 
suitors  and  litigants  began  to  cluster  on  the  great  steps,  each 
with  his  private  grievance,  his  lawsuit  or  complaint.  What 
a  sensation  must  that  have  occasioned  as  gazer  after  gazer 
caught  sight  of  the  fresh  colours  glowing  on  what  was  a 
blank  wall  the  day  before!  The  strange  inscriptions  in 
their  doggerel  lines,  mystic  enough  to  pique  every  intelli- 
gence, simple  enough  to  be  comprehensible  by  the  crowd, 
would  be  read  by  one  and  another  to  show  their  learning 
over  the  heads  of  the  multitude.  How  strange  a  thing, 
catching  every  eye  !  No  doubt  the  plan  of  it,  so  unusual  an 
appeal  to  the  popular  understanding,  was  Cola's ;  but  who 
could  the  artist  be  who  painted  that  "  similitude "  ?  Not 
any  one,  we  should  suppose,  who  lived  to  make  a  name  for 
himself  —  as  indeed,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  were  none 
such  in  Rome. 

This  pictorial  instruction  was  for  the  poor  :  it  placed 
before  them  Rome,  their  city,  for  love  of  which  they  were 
always  capable  of  being  roused  to  at  least  a  temporary  en- 
thusiasm—  struggling  and  unhappy,  cheated  by  those  she 
most  trusted,  ravaged  by  small  and  great,  in  danger  of  final 
and  hopeless  shipwreck.  In  all  her  ancient  greatness,  the 
peer  and  sister  of  the  splendid  cities  of  the  antique  world, 
and  like  them  falling  into  a  ruin  which  in  her  case  might 


416  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

yet  be  avoided,  the  suggestion  was  one  which,  was  admirably 
fitted  to  stir  and  move  the  spectators,  all  of  them  proud  of 
the  name  of  Roman,  and  deeply  conscious  of  ill-government 
and  suffering.  This,  however,  was  but  one  side  of  the  work 
which  he  had  set  himself  to  do.  A  short  time  after,  when 
his  picture  had  become  the  subject  of  all  tongues  in  Rome, 
Cola  the  notary  invited  the  nobles  and  notables  of  the  city 
to  meet  in  the  Church  of  St.  John  Lateran  to  hear  him 
expound  a  certain  inscription  there  which  had  hitherto  (we 
are  told)  baffled  all  interpreters.  It  must  be  supposed  that 
he  stood  high  in  the  favour  of  the  Church,  and  of  Raymond 
the  Bishop  of  Orvieto,  the  Pope's  representative,  or  he  would 
scarcely  have  been  permitted  to  use  the  great  basilica  for 
such  a  purpose. 

The  Church  of  the  Lateran,  however,  as  we  know  from 
various  sources,  was  in  an  almost  ruined  state,  nearly  roof- 
less and  probably,  in  consequence,  open  to  invasions  of  such 
a  kind.  Cola  must  have  already  secured  the  attention  of 
Rome  in  all  circles,  notwithstanding  that  box  on  the  ear 
with  which  Andreozzo  of  the  Colonna  had  tried  to  silence 
him.  He  was  taken  by  some  for  a  burlatore,  a  man  who  was 
a  great  jest  and  out  of  whom  much  amusement  could  be  got ; 
and  this  was  the  aspect  in  which  he  appeared  to  one  portion 
of  society,  to  the  young  barons  and  gilded  youth  of  Rome 
—  a  delusion  to  which  he  would  seem  to  have  temporarily 
lent  himself,  in  order  to  diffuse  his  doctrine ;  while  the  more 
serious  part  of  the  aristocracy  seem  to  have  become  curious 
at  least  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say,  and  prescient  of  mean- 
ings in  him  which  it  would  be  well  to  keep  in  order  by  better 
means  than  the  simple  method  of  Andreozzo.  The  working 
of  Cola's  own  mind  it  is  less  easy  to  trace.  His  picture  had 
been  such  an  allegory  as  the  age  loved,  broad  enough  and 
simple  enough  at  the  same  time  to  reach  the  common  level 
of  understanding.  When  he  addressed  himself  to  the  higher 
class,  it  was  with  an  instinctive  sense  of  the  difference,  but 


n.j  THE  DELIVERER.  417 

without  perhaps  a  very  clear  perception  what  that  difference 
was,  or  how  to  bear  himself  before  this  novel  audience. 
Perhaps  he  was  right  in  believing  that  a  striking  spectacle 
was  the  best  thing  to  startle  the  aristocrats  into  attention : 
perhaps  he  thought  it  well  to  take  advantage  of  the  notion 
that  Cola  of  Eienzo  was  more  or  less  a  buffoon,  and  that  a 
speech  of  his  was  likely  to  be  amusing  whatever  else  it  might 
be.  The  dress  which  his  biographer  describes  minutely,  and 
which  had  evidently  been  very  carefully  prepared,  seems  to 
favour  this  idea. 


"Not  much  time  passed  (after  the  exhibition  of  the  picture)  before 
he  admonished  the  people  by  a  fine  sermon  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  which 
he  made  in  St.  John  Lateran.  On  the  wall  behind  the  choir,  he  had 
fixed  a  great  and  magnificent  plate  of  metal  inscribed  with  ancient  letters, 
which  none  could  read  or  interpret  except  he  alone.  Round  this  tablet 
he  had  caused  several  figures  to  be  painted  which  represented  the 
Senate  of  Rome  conceding  the  authority  over  the  city  to  the  Emperor 
Vespasian.  In  the  midst  of  the  Church  was  erected  a  platform  (un 
parlatorio)  with  seats  upon  it,  covered  with  carpets  and  curtains  —  and 
upon  this  were  gathered  many  great  personages,  among  whom  were 
Stefano  Colonna,  and  Giovanni  Colonna  his  son,  who  were  the  great- 
est and  most  magnificent  in  the  city.  There  were  also  many  wise  and 
learned  men,  Judges  and  Decretalists,  and  many  persons  of  authority. 
Cola  di  Rienzo  came  upon  the  stage  among  these  great  people.  He 
was  dressed  in  a  tunic  and  cape  after  the  German  fashion,  with  a  hood 
up  to  his  throat  in  fine  white  cloth,  and  a  little  white  cap  on  his  head. 
On  the  round  of  his  cap  were  crowns  of  gold,  the  one  in  the  front 
being  divided  by  a  sword  made  in  silver,  the  point  of  which  was  stuck 
through  the  crown.  He  came  out  very  boldly,  and  when  silence  was 
procured  he  made  a  fine  sermon  with  many  beautiful  words,  and  said 
that  Rome  was  beaten  down  and  lay  on  the  ground,  and  could  not  see 
where  she  lay,  for  her  eyes  were  torn  out  of  her  head.  Her  eyes  were 
the  Pope  and  the  Emperor,  both  of  whom  Rome  had  lost  by  the  wicked- 
ness of  her  citizens.  Then  he  said  (pointing  to  the  pictured  figures), 
'  Behold,  what  was  the  magnificence  of  the  Senate  when  it  gave  the 
authority  to  the  Emperor.'  He  then  read  a  paper  in  which  was 
written  the  interpretation  of  the  inscription,  which  was  the  act  by 
which  the  imperial  power  was  given  by  the  people  of  Rome  to  Ves- 
pasian. Firstly  that  Vespasian  should  have  the  power  to  make  good 
laws,  and  to  make  alliances  with  any  whom  he  pleased,  and  that  he 
should  be  entitled  to  increase  or  diminish  the  garden  of  Home,  that 
is  Italy :  and  that  he  should  give  accounts  less  or  more  as  he  would. 
He  might  also  raise  men  to  be  dukes  and  kings,  put  them  up  or  pull 
them  down,  destroy  or  rebuild  cities,  divert  rivers  out  of  their  beds  to 
flow  in  another  channel,  put  on  taxes  or  abolish  them  at  his  pleasure. 

2E  •     ' 


418  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

All  these  things  the  Romans  gave  to  Vespasian  according  to  their 
Charter  to  which  Tiberius  Csesar  consented.  He  then  put  aside  that 
paper  and  said,  '  Sirs,  such  was  the  majesty  of  the  people  of  Rome 
that  it  was  they  who  conferred  this  authority  upon  the  Emperor. 
Now  they  have  lost  it  altogether.'  Then  he  entered  more  fully  into 
the  question  and  said,  '  Romans,  you  do  not  live  in  peace  :  your  lands 
are  not  cultivated.  The  Jubilee  is  approaching  and  you  have  no  pro- 
vision of  grain  or  food  for  the  people  who  are  coming,  who  will  find 
themselves  unprovided  for,  and  who  will  take  up  stones  in  the  rage  of 
their  hunger :  but  neither  will  the  stones  be  enough  for  such  a  mul- 
titude.' Then  concluding  he  added:  '  I  pray  you  keep  the  peace.' 
Then  he  said  this  parable  :  *  Sirs,  I  know  that  many  people  make  a 
mock  at  me  for  what  I  do  and  say.  And  why  ?  For  envy.  But  I 
thank  God  there  are  three  things  which  consume  the  slanderers.  The 
first  luxury,  the  second  jealousy,  the  third  envy.'  When  he  had  ended 
the  sermon  and  come  down,  he  was  much  lauded  by  the  people." 

The  inscription  thus  set  before  the  people  was  the  bronze 
table,  called  the  Lex  Eegia.  Why  it  was  that  no  one  had 
been  able  to  interpret  it  up  to  that  moment  we  are  not  told. 
Learning  was  at  a  very  low  ebb,  and  the  importance  of  such 
great  documents  whether  in  metal  or  parchment  was  as  yet 
but  little  recognised.  This  was  evidently  one  of  the  results 
of  Cola's  studies  of  the  old  inscriptions  of  which  we  are  told 
in  the  earliest  chapter  of  his  career.  It  had  formed  Dart 
of  an  altar  in  the  Lateran  Church,  being  placed  there  as  a 
handy  thing  for  the  purpose  in  apparent  ignorance  of  any 
better  use  for  it,  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  when  he  restored 
the  church.  No  doubt  some  of  the  feeble  reparations  that 
were  going  on  had  brought  the  storied  stone  under  Cola's 
notice,  and  he  had  interest  enough  to  have  it  removed  from 
so  inappropriate  a  place.  It  is  now  let  into  the  wall  in  the 
Hall  of  the  Faun  on  the  Capitol. 

We  have  here  an  instance  not  only  of  the  exaltation  of 
Cola's  mind  and  thoughts,  imaginative  and  ardent,  and  his 
possession  by  the  one  idea  of  Roman  greatness,  but  also  of 
his  privileges  and  power  at  this  moment,  before  he  had  as 
yet  struck  a  blow  or  made  a  step  towards  his  future  position. 
That  he  should  have  been  allowed  to  displace  the  tablet 
from  the  altar  (which  however  may  have  been  done  in  the 


ii.]          ,  THE  DELIVERER.  419 

course  of  the  repairs)  to  set  it  up  in  that  conspicuous  posi- 
tion, and  to  use  the  church,  he  a  layman  and  a  plebeian,  for 
his  own  objects,  testifies  to  very  strong  support  and  privi- 
lege. The  influence  of  the  Pope  must  have  been  at  his 
back,  and  the  resources  of  the  Church  thrown  open  to  him. 
Neither  his  audacious  speech  nor  his  constant  denunciation 
of  barons  and  officials  seem  to  have  been  attended  by  the 
risks  we  should  have  expected.  Either  the  authorities  must 
have  been  very  magnanimous,  or  he  was  well  protected  by 
some  power  they  did  not  choose  to  encounter.  Some  doubt 
as  to  his  sanity  or  his  seriousness  seems  to  have  existed 
among  them.  Giovanni  Colonna,  familiarly  Janni,  grandson 
of  old  Stefano,  a  brilliant  young  gallant  likely  to  grow  into 
a  fine  soldier,  the  hope  of  the  house,  invited  him  constantly 
to  entertainments  where  all  the  gilded  youth  of  Rome  gath- 
ered as  to  a  play  to  hear  him  talk.  When  he  said,  "  I  shall 
be  a  great  lord,  perhaps  even  emperor,"  the  youths  gave 
vent  to  shouts  of  laughter.  "  All  the  barons  were  full  of  it, 
some  encouraging  him,  some  disposed  to  cut  off  his  head. 
But  nothing  was  done  to  him.  How  many  things  he  proph- 
esied about  the  state  of  the  city,  and  the  generous  rule  it 
required!"  Kome  listened  and  was  excited  or  amused 
according  to  its  mood,  but  nothing  was  done  either  to  con- 
form that  rule  to  his  demands  or  to  stop  the  bold  reformer. 
By  this  time  it  had  become  the  passion  of  his  life,  and 
the  occupation  of  all  his  leisure.  He  could  think  of  nothing 
but  how  to  persuade  the  people,  how  to  make  their  condition 
clear  to  them.  Once  more  his  painter  friends,  the  journey- 
men of  the  bottega,  whoever  they  were,  came  to  his  aid  and 
painted  him  again  a  picture,  this  time  on  the  wall  of  St. 
Angelo  in  Pescheria,  which  we  may  suppose  to  have  been 
Cola's  parish  church,  as  it  continually  appears  in  the  narra- 
tive —  where  once  more  they  set  forth  in  ever  bolder  sym- 
bolism the  condition  of  Rome.  Again  she  was  represented 
as  an  aged  woman,  this  time  in  the  midst  of  a  great  confla- 


420  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

gration,  half  consumed,  but  watched  over  by  an  angel  in 
all  the  glories  of  white  attire  and  flaming  sword,  ready  to 
rescue  her  from  the  flames,  under  the  superintendence  of 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  who  looked  on  from  a  tower,  calling 
to  the  angel  to  "  succour  her  who  gave  shelter  to  us  "  ;  while 
a  white  dove  fluttered  down  from  the  skies  with  a  crown  of 
myrtle  to  be  placed  upon  the  head  of  the  woman,  and  the 
legend  bore  "  I  see  the  time  of  the  great  justice  —  and  thou, 
wait  for  it."  Once  more  the  crowd  collected,  the  picture 
was  discussed  and  what  it  meant  questioned  and  expounded. 
There  were  some  who  shook  their  heads  and  said  that  more 
was  wanted  than  pictures  to  amend  the  state  of  affairs ;  but 
it  may  easily  be  supposed  that  as  these  successive  allegories 
were  represented  before  them,  in  a  language  which  every 
one  could  understand,  the  feeling  grew,  and  that  there 
would  be  little  else  talked  about  in  Eome  but  those  strange 
writings  on  the  walls  and  what  their  meanings  were.  The 
picture  given  by  Lord  Lytton  in  his  novel  of  Rienzi,  of 
this  agitated  moment  of  history,  is  very  faithful  to  the 
facts,  and  gives  a  most  animated  description  of  the  scenes ; 
though  in  the  latter  part  of  his  story  he  prefers  romance 
to  history. 

All  these  incidents  however  open  to  our  eyes  side  glimpses 
of  the  other  Rome  underneath  the  surface,  which  was  oc- 
cupied by  contending  nobles  and  magnificent  houses,  and 
all  the  little  events  and  picturesque  episodes  with  which  a 
predominant  aristocracy  amused  the  world.  If  Mr.  Brown- 
ing had  expounded  Rome  once  more  on  a  graver  subject, 
as  he  did  once  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  what  groups  he 
might  have  set  before  us!  The  painters  who  had  as  yet 
produced  no  one  known  to  fame,  but  who,  always  impres- 
sionable, would  be  agitated  through  all  the  depths  of  their 
workshops  by  the  breath  of  revolution,  the  hope  of  some- 
thing fine  to  come,  would  have  taken  up  a  portion  of  the 
foreground :  for  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  Pope  and  the 


ii.]  THE  DELIVERER.  421 

court,  the  occupation  of  a  body  of  artist  workmen,  good  for 
little  more  than  decoration,  ecclesiastical  or  domestic,  must 
have  suffered  greatly :  and  none  can  be  more  easily  touched 
by  the  agitation  of  new  and  aspiring  thought  than  men 
whose  very  trade  requires  a  certain  touch  of  inspiration,  a 
stimulus  of  fancy.  No  doubt  in  the  studios  there  were 
many  young  men  who  had  grown  up  with  Cola,  who  had 
hung  upon  his  impassioned  talk  before  it  was  known  to  the 
world,  and  heard  his  vague  and  exalted  schemes  for  Rome, 
for  the  renovation  of  all  her  ancient  glories,  not  forgetting 
new  magnificences  of  sculpture  and  of  painting  worthy  of 
the  renovated  city,  the  mistress  of  the  world.  Their  eager 
talk  and  discussions,  their  knowledge  of  his  ways  and 
thoughts,  the  old  inscriptions  he  had  shown  them,  the  new 
hopes  which  he  had  described  in  his  glowing  language, 
must  have  filled  with  excitement  all  those  bottegas,  perched 
among  the  ruins,  those  workshops  planned  out  of  aban- 
doned palaces,  the  haunt  of  the  Roman  youth  who  were  not 
gentlemen  but  workmen,  and  to  whom  Janni  Colonna  and 
his  laughing  companions,  who  thought  Cola  so  great  a  jest 
in  his  mad  brilliancy,  were  magnificent  young  patrons  half 
admired,  half  abhorred.  How  great  a  pride  it  must  have 
been  to  be  taken  into  Cola's  confidence,  to  reduce  to  the 
laws  of  possible  representation  those  "  similitudes  "  of  his, 
the  stormy  sea  with  its  galleys  and  its  islets,  the  blaze  of 
the  fatal  fire :  and  to  hurry  out  by  dawn,  a  whole  band  of 
them,  in  all  the  delight  of  conspiracy,  to  dash  forth  the 
joint  conception  on  the  wall,  and  help  him  to  read  his 
lesson  to  the  people ! 

And  Browning  would  have  found  another  Rome  still  to 
illustrate  in  the  priests,  the  humbler  clergy,  the  cure  of  St. 
Angelo  in  the  Fishmarket,  and  so  many  more,  of  the  people 
yet  over  the  people,  the  humble  churchmen  with  their  little 
learning,  just  enough  to  understand  a  classical  name  or 
allusion,  some  of  whom  must  have  helped  Cola  himself  to 


422  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

his  Latin,  and  pored  with  him  over  his  inscriptions,  and 
taken  fire  from  his  enthusiasm  as  a  mind  half  trained,  with- 
out the  limitations  that  come  with  completer  knowledge,  is 
apt  to  do  —  feeling  everything  to  be  possible  and  ignoring 
the  difficulties  and  inevitable  disasters  of  revolution.  .The 
great  ideal  of  the  Church  always  hovering  in  the  air  before 
the  visionary  priest,  and  the  evident  and  simple  reason  why 
it  failed  in  this  case  from  the  absence  of  the  Pope,  and  the 
widowhood  of  the  city,  must  have  so  tempered  the  classical 
symbolism  of  the  leader  as  to  make  his  dreams  seem  pos- 
sible to  men  so  little  knowing  the  reality  of  things,  and  so 
confident  that  with  the  strength  of  their  devotion  and  the 
purity  of  their  aims  everything  could  be  accomplished.  To 
such  minds  the  possible  and  impossible  have  no  existence, 
the  world  itself  is  such  a  thing  as  dreams  are  made  of,  and 
the  complete  reformation  of  all  things,  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  in  which  shall  dwell  righteousness,  are  always  attain- 
able and  near  at  hand,  if  only  the  effort  to  reach  them  were 
strong  enough,  and  the  minds  of  the  oppressed  properly 
enlightened.  No  one  has  sufficiently  set  forth,  though 
many  have  essayed  to  do  so,  this  loftiness  of  human  futility, 
this  wild  faith  of  inexperience  and  partial  ignorance,  which 
indeed  sometimes  does  for  a  moment  at  least  carry  every- 
thing before  it  in  the  frenzy  of  enthusiasm  and  faith. 

On  the  other  side  were  Janni  Colonna  and  his  comrades, 
the  young  Savelli,  Gaetani,  all  the  gallant  band,  careless  of 
all  things,  secure  in  their  nobility,  in  that  easy  confidence 
of  rank  and  birth  which  is  perhaps  the  most  picturesque  of 
all  circumstances,  and  one  of  the  most  exhilarating,  making 
its  possessor  certain  above  all  logic  that  for  him  the  sun 
shines  and  the  world  goes  round.  There  were  all  varieties 
among  these  young  nobles  as  among  other  classes  of  men; 
some  were  bons  princes,  careless  but  not  unthoughtful  in 
any  cruel  way  of  others,  if  only  they  could  be  made  to 
understand  that  their  triumphant  career  was  anyhow  hurt- 


ii.]  THE  DELIVERER.  423 

ful  of  others  —  a  difficult  thing  always  to  realise.  The 
Colonnas  apart  from  their  feuds  and  conflicts  were  gener- 
ally bans  princes.  They  were  not  a  race  of  oppressors ; 
they  loved  the  arts  and  petted  their  special  poet,  who  hap- 
pened at  that  moment  to  be  the  great  poet  of  Italy,  and  no 
doubt  admired  the  eloquent  Cola  and  were  delighted  with 
his  discourses  and  sallies,  though  they  might  find  a  spice  of 
ridicule  in  them,  as  when  he  said  he  was  to  be  a  great  seigneur 
or  even  emperor.  That  was  his  jest,,  could  not  one  see  the 
twinkle  in  his  eye  ?  And  probably  old  Stefano,  the  noble 
grandsire,  would  smile  too  as  he  heard  the  laughter  of  the 
boys,  and  think  not  unkindly  of  the  mad  notary  with  his 
enthusiasms,  which  would  no  doubt  soon  enough  be  quenched 
out  of  him,  as  was  the  case  with  most  men  when  experience 
came  with  years  to  correct  those  not  ungenerous  follies  of 
youth.  The  great  churchmen  would  seem  to  have  been  still 
more  tolerant  to  Cola  —  glad  to  find  this  unexpected  aux- 
iliary who  helped  to  hold  the  balance  in  favour  of  the  Pope, 
and  keep  the  nobles  in  check. 

In  the  meantime  Cola  proceeded  with  his  warnings,  and 
by  and  by  with  more  strenuous  preparation.  We  come  to  a 
date  fortunately  when  we  read  of  a  sudden  issue  of  potent 
words  which  came  forth  like  the  handwriting  on  the  wall 
one  morning,  on  February  15th,  1347.  "In  a  short  time 
the  Romans  shall  return  to  their  ancient  good  government." 
In  brievo  tempo  —  the  actual  sonorous  words  sounding  forth 
large  and  noble  like  flute  and  trumpet  in  our  ear,  are  worth 
quoting  for  the  sound  if  no  more  :  In  brievo  tempo  I  Romani 
tornaraco  a  lo  loro  antico  buono  stato.  What  a  thrill  of  ex- 
citement to  turn  round  a  sudden  corner  and  find  this  facing 
you  on  the  church  wall,  words  that  were  not  there  yester- 
day !  Lo  antico  buono  stato  !  «the  most  skilful  watchword, 
which  thereafter  became  the  special  symbol  of  the  new 
reformation.  It  is  after  this  that  we  hear  of  the  gathering 
of  a  little  secret  assembly  in  some  quiet  spot  on  the  Aven- 


424  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

tine,  "  a  secret  place  "  —  where  on  some  privately  arranged 
occasion  there  came  serious  men  from  all  parts  of  the  city, 
"many  Romans  of  importance  and  buoni  liomini"  which  was 
the  title,  as  we  have  seen,  given  to  the  popular  leaders. 
"And  among  them  were  some  of  the  gentry  (cavalerotti) 
and  rich  merchants  "  —  to  consider  what  could  be  done  to 
restore  the  good  government  (lo  buono  stato)  of  the  city  of 
Eome. 

"Among  whom  Cola  rose  to  his  feet,  and  narrated,  weeping,  the 
misery,  servitude  and  peril  in  which  lay  the  city.  And  also  what 
once  was  the  great  and  lordly  state  which  the  Romans  were  wont  to 
enjoy.  He  also  spoke  of  the  loss  of  all  the  surrounding  country  which 
had  once  been  in  subjection  to  Rome.  And  all  this  he  related  with 
tears,  the  whole  assembly  weeping  with  him.  Then  he  concluded  and 
said  that  it  behoved  them  to  serve  the  cause  of  peace  and  justice,  and 
consoled  them  adding  :  '  Be  not  afraid  in  respect  to  money,  for  the 
Roman  Cammora  has  much  and  inestimable  returns.'  In  the  first 
place  the  fires :  each  smoke  paying  four  soldi,  from  Cepranno  to  the 
Porta  della  Paglia.  This  amounts  to  a  hundred  thousand  florins. 
From  the  salt  tax  a  hundred  thousand  florins.  Then  come  the  gates 
of  Rome  and  the  castles,  and  the  dues  there  amount  to  a  hundred 
thousand  florins  which  is  sent  to  his  Holiness  the  Pope,  and  that  his 
Vicar  knows.  Then  he  said,  '  Sirs,  do  not  believe  that  it  is  by  the 
consent  or  will  of  the  Pope  that  so  many  of  the  citizens  lay  violent 
hands  on  the  goods  of  the  Church.'  By  these  parables  the  souls  of 
the  assembly  were  kindled.  And  many  other  things  he  said  weeping. 
Then  they  deliberated  how  to  restore  the  Buono  Stato.  And  every 
one  swore  this  upon  the  Holy  Gospels  —  (in  the  Italian  '  in  the  letter,' 
by  a  recorded  act)." 

It  appears  very  probable  by  the  allusion  to  the  Pope's 
Vicar  that  he  was  present  at  this  secret  assembly.  At  all 
events  he  was  informed  of  all  that  was  done,  and  took  part 
in  the  first  overt  act  of  the  revolution.  To  give  fuller  war- 
rant for  these  secret  plans  and  conspiracies,  the  state  of  the 
city  went  on  growing  worse  every  day.  The  two  parties, 
that  of  Colonna,  and  that  of  Orsini,  so  balanced  each  other, 
the  one  availing  itself  of  every  incident  which  could  dis- 
credit and  put  at  a  disadvantage  the  other,  that  justice  and 
law  were  brought  to  a  standstill,  every  criminal  finding  a 
protector  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  every  kind  of  rapine 


ii.]  THE  DELIVERER.  425 

and  violence  going  unpunished.  "  The  city  was  in  great 
travail,"  our  chronicler  says,  "  it  had  no  lord,  murder  and 
robbery  went  on  on  every  side.  Women  were  not  safe 
either  in  convents  or  in  their  own  houses.  The  labourer 
was  robbed  as  he  came  back  from  his  work,  and  even 
children  were  outraged;  and  all  this  within  the  gates  of 
Rome.  The  pilgrims  making  their  way  to  the  shrines  of  the 
Apostles  were  robbed  and  often  murdered.  The  priests 
themselves  were  ready  for  every  evil.  Every  wickedness 
flourished:  there  was  no  justice,  no  restraint:  and  neither 
was  there  any  remedy  for  this  state  of  things.  He  only 
was  in  the  right  who  could  prove  himself  so  with  the  sword." 
All  that  the  unfortunate  people  could  do  was  to  band  them- 
selves together  and  fight,  each  for  his  own  cause. 

In  the  month  of  April  of  the  year  1347  this  state  of 
anarchy  was  at  its  height.  Stef ano  Colonna  had  gone  to 
Corneto  for  provisions,  taking  with  him  all  the  milice,  the 
Garde  Nationale  or  municipal  police  of  Rome.  Deprived 
even  of  this  feeble  support  and  without  any  means  of  keep- 
ing order,  the  Senators,  Agapito  Colonna  and  Robert  Orsini, 
remained  as  helpless  to  subdue  any  rising  as  they  were  to 
regulate  the  internal  affairs  of  the  city.  The  conspirators 
naturally  took  advantage  of  this  opportunity.  They  sent  a 
town  crier  with  sound  of  trumpet  to  call  all  men  to  prepare 
to  come  without  arms  to  the  Capitol,  to  the  Buono  Stato  at 
the  sound  of  the  great  bell.  During  the  night  Cola  would 
seem  to  have  kept  vigil  —  it  was  the  eve  of  Pentecost  —  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Angelo  in  Pescheria  hearing  "  thirty 
masses  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  says  the  chronicler,  spending 
the  night  in  devotion  as  we  should  say.  At  the  hour  of 
tierce,  in  the  early  morning,  he  came  out  of  Church,  having 
thus  invoked  with  the  greatest  solemnity  the  aid  of  God. 
It  was  the  20th  of  May,  a  summer  festival,  when  all  Rome 
is  glorious  with  sunshine,  and  the  orange  blossoms  and  the 
roses  from  every  garden  fill  the  air  with  sweetness.  He  was 


426  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

fully  armed  except  his  head,  which  was  bare.  A  multitude 
of  youths  encircled  him  with  sudden  shouts  and  cheering, 
breaking  the  morning  quiet,  and  startling  the  churchgoers 
hastening  to  an  early  mass,  who  must  have  stood  gaping  to 
see  one  banner  after  another  roll  out  between  them  and  the 
sky,  issuing  from  the  church  doors.  The  first  was  red  with 
letters  of  gold,  painted  with  a  figure  of  Rome  seated  on  two 
lions,  carrying  an  orb,  and  a  palm  in  her  hands  — "  un 
Mundo  e  una  Palma  "  —  signs  of  her  universal  sovereignty. 
"  This  was  the  Gonfalon  of  Liberty  "  —  and  it  was  carried 
by  Cola  Guallato  distinguished  as  "Lo  buon  dicitore"  — 
another  orator  like  Rienzi  himself.  The  second  was  white 
with  an  image  of  St.  Paul,  on  the  third  was  St.  Peter  and 
his  keys.  This  last  was  carried  by  an  old  knight  who, 
because  he  was  a  veteran,  was  conveyed  in  a  carriage.  By 
this  time  the  great  bell  of  the  Capitol  was  ringing  and  the 
men  who  had  been  invited  were  hurrying  there  through  all 
the  streets.  "Then  Cola  di  Bienzo  took  all  his  courage, 
though  not  without  fear,  and  went  on  alone  with  the  Vicar 
of  the  Pope  and  went  up  to  the  Palace  of  the  Capitol." 
There  he  addressed  the  crowd,  making  a  bettissima  diceria 
upon  the  misery  and  anarchy  in  Rome,  saying  that  he  risked 
his  life  for  the  love  of  the  Pope  and  the  salvation  of  the 
people.  The  reader  can  almost  hear  the  suppressed  quiver 
of  excitement  "  not  without  fear  "  in  his  voice.  And  then 
the  rules  of  the  Buono  Stato  were  read.  They  were  very 
simple  but  very  thorough.  The  first  was  that  whoever  mur- 
dered a  man  should  die  for  it,  without  any  exception.  The 
second  that  every  case  heard  before  the  judges  should  be 
concluded  within  fifteen  days ;  the  third  that  no  house  should 
be  destroyed  for  any  reason,  except  by  order  of  the  authori- 
ties. The  fourth  that  every  rione  or  district  of  the  city 
should  have  its  force  of  defenders,  twenty-four  horsemen 
and  a  hundred  on  foot,  paid  by  and  under  the  order  of  the 
State.  Further,  that  a  ship  should  be  kept  for  the  special 


IT.]  THE  DELIVERER.  427 

protection  of  the  merchants  on  the  coast ;  that  taxes  were 
necessary  and  should  be  spent  by  the  officers  of  the  Buono 
Stato ;  that  the  bridges,  castles,  gates  and  fortresses  should 
be  held  by  no  man  except  the  rector  of  the  people,  and 
should  never  be  allowed  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  a  baron : 
that  the  barons  should  be  set  to  secure  the  safety  of  the 
roads  to  Rome  and  should  not  protect  robbers,  under  a  pen- 
alty of  a  thousand  marks  of  silver :  —  that  the  Commune 
should  give  help  in  money  to  the  convents ;  that  each  rione 
should  have  its  granary  and  provide  a  reserve  there  for  evil 
times  ;  that  the  kin  of  every  man  slain  in  battle  in  the  cause 
of  the  Commune  should  have  a  recompense  according  to 
their  degree:  —  that  the  ancient  States  subject  to  Rome 
should  be  restored  ;  and  that  whoever  brought  an  accusation 
against  a  man  which  could  not  be  proved  should  suffer  the 
penalty  belonging  to  the  offence  if  it  had  been  proved.  This 
and  various  other  regulations  which  pleased  the  people 
much  were  read,  and  passed  unanimously  by  a  show  of  hands 
and  great  rejoicing.  "  And  it  was  also  ordained  that  Cola 
should  remain  there  as  lord,  but  in  conjunction  with  the 
Vicar  of  the  Pope.  And  authority  was  given  to  him  to 
punish,  slay,  pardon,  to  make  laws  and  alliances,  determine 
boundaries ;  and  full  and  free  imperia,  absolute  power,  was 
given  him  in  everything  that  concerned  the  people  of 
Eome.7' 

Thus  was  Cola's  brag  which  so  much  amused  the  young 
lords  made  true  over  all  their  heads  before  many  weeks  were 
past.  He  had  said  that  he  would  be  a  great  lord,  as  power- 
ful as  an  emperor.  And  so  he  was. 


THE   LTJNGARA. 


CHAPTEE  III. 


THE    BUONO    STATO. 

first  incident  in  this  new  reign,  so  suddenly  in- 
augurated,  was  a  startling  one.  Stefano  Colonna  was 
the  father  of  all  the  band  —  he  of  whom  Petrarch  speaks 
with  such  enthusiasm:  " Dio  immortale!  what  majesty  in 
his  aspect,  what  a  voice,  what  a  look,  what  nobility  in  his 
air,  what  vigour  of  soul  and  body  at  that  age  of  his !  I 
seemed  to  stand  before  Julius  Csesar  or  Africanus,  if  not 
that  he  was  older  than  either.  Wonderful  to  say,  this  man 
never  grows  old,  while  Borne  is  older  and  older  every  day." 
He  was  absent  from  Rome,  as  has  been  said,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  wonderful  overthrow  of  all  previous  rule,  and  estab- 
lishment of  the  Buono  Stato ;  but  as  soon  as  he  heard  what 
had  happened,  he  hastened  back,  with  but  few  followers, 

428 


CH.  m.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  429 

never  doubting  that  he  would  soon  make  an  end  of  that 
mountebank  revolution.  Early  in  the  following  morning 
he  received  from  Cola  a  copy  of  the  edict  made  on  the 
Capitol  and  an  order  to  leave  Rome  at  once.  Stefano  took 
the  paper  and  tore  it  in  a  thousand  pieces.  "  If  this  fool 
makes  me  angry,"  he  said,  "  I  will  fling  him  from  the  win- 
dows of  the  Capitol."  When  this  was  reported  to  Cola,  he 
caused  the  bell  of  the  Capitol  to  be  sounded  a  stuormo,  and 
the  people  rushed  from  all  quarters  to  the  call.  Everything 
went  rapidly  at  this  moment  of  fate,  and  even  the  brave 
Colonna  seems  to  have  changed  his  mind  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye.  The  aspect  of  affairs  was  so  threatening  that 
Stefano  took  the  better  part  of  valour  and  rode  off  at  once 
with  a  single  attendant,  stopping  only  at  San  Lorenzo  to 
eat,  and  pushing  on  to  Palestrina,  which  was  his  chief  seat 
and  possession.  Cola  took  instant  advantage  of  this  occur- 
rence: with  the  sanction  of  the  excited  people,  he  sent  a 
similar  order  to  that  which  Stefano  had  received,  to  all  the 
other  barons,  ordering  them  to  leave  the  city.  Strange  to 
say  the  order  of  the  popular  leader  was  at  once  obeyed. 
Perhaps  no  one  ventured  to  stand  after  the  head  of  the 
Roman  chivalry  had  fled.  These  gallant  cavaliers  yielded 
to  the  Pazzo,  the  madman,  with  whom  the  head  of  the' 
Colonnas  had  expected  to  make  such  short  work,  without 
striking  a  blow,  in  a  panic  sudden  and  complete.  Next  day 
all  the  bridges  were  given  up  and  officials  of  the  people  set 
over  them.  "  One  was  served  in  one  way,  another  in  an- 
other —  these  were  banished  and  those  had  their  heads  cut 
off  without  mercy.  The  wicked  were  all  judged  cruelly." 
Afterwards  another  Parlamento  was  held  on  the  Capitol, 
and  all  that  had  been  done  approved  and  confirmed  —  and 
the  people  with  one  voice  declared  Cola,  and  with  him  the 
Pope's  Vicar,  who  had  a  share  in  all  these  wonderful  pro- 
ceedings, Tribunes  of  the  People  and  Liberators. 

There  would  seem  after  this  alarmed  dispersion  of  the 


430  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

nobles  to  have  been  some  attempt  on  their  part  to  regain 
the  upper  hand,  which  failed  as  they  could  not  agree  among 
themselves :  upon  which  they  received  another  call  from 
Cola  to  appear  in  the  Capitol  and  swear  to  uphold  'the 
Buono  Stato.  One  by  one  the  alarmed  nobles  came  in. 
The  first  was  Stefanello  Colonna,  the  son  of  the  old  man,  the 
first  of  his  children  after  the  two  ecclesiastics,  and  heir  of 
his  influence  and  lands.  Then  came  Kanello  degli  Orsini, 
then  Janni  Colonna,  he  who  had  invited  Cola  to  dinner  and 
laughed  loud  and  long  with  his  comrades  over  the  buffoon- 
ery of  the  orator.  What  Cola  said  was  no  longer  a  merry 
jest.  Then  came  Giordano  of  the  same  name,  then  Messer 
Stefano  himself,  the  fine  old  man,  the  magnanimous  —  be- 
wildered by  his  own  unexpected  submission  yet  perhaps 
touched  with  some  sense  of  the  justice  there  was  in  it, 
swearing  upon  the  Evangels  to  be  faithful  to  the  Commune, 
and  to  busy  himself  with  his  own  share  of  the  work :  how 
to  clear  the  roads,  and  turn  away  the  robbers,  to  protect  the 
orphans  and  the  poor.  The  nobles  gazed  around  them  at  the 
gathering  crowd;  they  were  daunted  by  all  they  saw,  and 
one  by  one  they  took  the  oaths.  One  of  the  last  was  Fran- 
cesco Savelli,  who  was  the  proper  lord  of  Cola  di  Rienzo, 
his  master  —  yet  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  him,  his 
own  retainer.  It  was  such  a  wonder  as  had  never  been 
seen.  But  everything  was  wonderful  —  the  determination 
of  the  people,  the  Pope's  Vicar  by  the  side  of  that  mad 
Tribune,  the  authority  in  Cola's  eyes,  and  in  his  eloquent 
voice. 

There  must,  however,  have  been  a  strong  sense  of  the 
theatrical  in  the  man.  As  he  had  at  first  appealed  to  the 
people  by  visible  allegories,  by  pictures  and  similitudes,  he 
kept  up  their  interest  now  by  continual  spectacles.  He 
studied  his  dress,  as  we  have  already  seen,  on  all  occasions, 
always  aiming  at  something  which  would  strike  the  eye. 
His  robe  of  office  was  "  of  a  fiery  colour  as  if  it  had  been 


in.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  431 

scarlet."  "His  face  and  his  aspect  were  terrible."  He 
showed  mercy  to  no  criminal,  but  exercised  freely  his  privi- 
lege of  life  and  death  without  respect  of  persons.  A  monk 
of  San  Anastasio,  who  was  a  person  of  infamous  conduct, 
was  beheaded  like  any  other  offender;  and  a  still  greater, 
Martino  di  Porto,  head  of  one  of  the  great  houses,  met  the 
same  fate.  Sometimes,  his  biographers  allow,  Cola  was 
cruel.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  a  man  of  nervous  cour- 
age "  not  without  fear  " ;  very  keenly  alive  to  the  risk  he 
was  running  and  not  incapable,  as  was  afterwards  proved, 
of  a  sudden  panic,  as  quickly  roused  as  his  flash  of  excessive 
valour.  In  one  mood  he  was  pushed  by  the  passion  of  the 
absolute  to  rash  proceedings,  sudden  vengeance,  which  suited 
well  enough  with  the  instincts  of  his  followers  ;  in  another 
his  courage  was  apb  to  sink  and  his  composure  to  fail  at  the 
first  frown  of  fortune.  The  beginning  of  his  career  is  like 
that  of  a  man  inspired  —  what  he  determined  on  was  car- 
ried out  as  if  by  magic.  He  seemed  to  have  only  to  ordain 
and  it  was  accomplished.  Within  a  very  short  time  the 
courts  of  law,  the  markets,  the  public  life  in  Rome  were  all 
transformed.  The  barons,  unwilling  as  they  were,  must 
have  done  their  appointed  work,  for  the  roads  all  at  once 
became  safe,  and  the  disused  processes  of  lawful  life  were 
resumed.  "The  woods  rejoiced,  for  there  were  no  longer 
robbers  in  them.  The  oxen  began  to  plough.  The  pilgrims 
began  again  to  make  their  circuits  to  the  Sanctuaries,  the 
merchants  to  come  and  go,  to  pursue  their  business.  Fear 
and  terror  fell  on  the  tyrants,  and  all  good  people,  as  freed 
from  bondage,  were  full  of  joy."  The  bravos,  the  highway- 
men, all  the  ill-doers  who  had  kept  the  city  and  its  environs 
in  terror  fled  in  their  turn,  finding  no  protectors,  nor  any 
shelter  that  could  save  them  from  the  prompt  and  ready 
sword  of  justice.  Refinements  even  of  theoretical  benevo- 
lence were  in  Cola's  courts  of  law.  There  were  Peacemakers 
to  hear  the  pleas  of  men  injured  by  their  neighbours  and 


432  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME  [CHAP. 

bring  them,  if  possible,  into  accord.  Here  is  one  very  curi- 
ous scene  :  the  law  of  compensations,  by  which  an  injury 
done  should  be  repaid  in  kind,  being  in  full  force. 

"It  happened  that  one  man  had  blinded  the  eye  of  another ;  the 
prosecutors  came  and  their  case  was  tried  on  the  steps  of  the  Capitol. 
The  culprit  was  kneeling  there,  weeping,  and  praying  God  to  forgive 
him  when  the  injured  person  came  forward.  The  malefactor  then 
raised  his  face  that  his  eye  might  be  blinded,  if  so  it  was  ordained. 
But  the  other  was  moved  with  pity,  and  would  not  touch  his  eye,  but 
forgave  him  the  injury." 

No  doubt  the  ancient  doctrine  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  has 
in  all  times  been  thus  tempered  with  mercy. 

It  would  appear  that  Cola  now  lived  in  the  Capitol  as  his 
palace ;  and  he  gradually  began  to  surround  himself  with 
all  the  insignia  of  rank.  This  was  part  of  his  plan  from 
the  beginning,  for,  as  has  been  said,  he  lost  no  opportunity 
of  an  effective  appearance,  either  from  a  natural  inclination 
that  way,  or  from  a  wise  appreciation  of  the  tastes  of  the 
crowd,  which  he  had  such  perfect  acquaintance  with.  But 
there  was  nothing  histrionic  in  the  immediate  results  of  his 
new  reign.  That  he  should  have  styled  himself  in  all  his 
public  documents,  letters  and  laws,  "Nicholas,  severe  and 
clement,  Tribune  of  peace,  freedom,  and  justice,  illustrious 
Liberator  of  the  holy  Roman  Republic,'7  may  have  too 
much  resembled  the  braggadocio  which  is  so  displeasing 
to  our  colder  temperaments ;  but  Cola  was  no  Englishman, 
neither  was  he  of  the  nineteenth  century :  and  there  was 
something  large  and  harmonious,  a  swing  of  words  such  as 
the  Italian  loves,  a  combination  of  the  Brutus  and  the 
Christian,  in  the  conjunction  of  these  qualities  which  rec- 
ommends itself  to  the  imaginative  ear,  But  however  his 
scarlet  robes  and  his  inflated  self-description  may  be  ob- 
jected to,  nothing  could  mar  the  greatness  of  the  moral 
revolution  he  effected  in  a  city  restored  to  peace  and  all 
the  innocent  habits  of  life,  and  a  country  tranquillised  and 
made  safe,  where  men  came  and  went  unmolested.  Six 


in.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  433 

years  before,  as  we  have  noted,  Petrarch,  the  hero  of  the 
moment,  was  stopped  by  robbers  just  outside  the  walls  of 
Kome,  and  had  to  fly  back  to  the  city  to  get  an  armed 
escort  before  he  could  pursue  his  way.  "The  shepherd 
armed,"  he  says,  "watches  his  sheep,  afraid  of  robbers 
more  than  of  wolves ;  the  ploughman  wears  a  shirt  of  mail 
and  goads  his  oxen  with  a  lance.  There  is  no  safety,  no 
peace,  no  humanity  among  the  inhabitants,  but  only  war, 
hate,  and  the  work  of  devils." 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  Cola  came  to 
power.  In  a  month  or  two  after  that  sudden  overturn  his 
messengers,  unarmed,  clothed,  some  say,  in  white  with  the 
scarcella  at  their  girdle  embroidered  with  the  arms  of 
Eome,  and  bearing  for  all  defence  a  white  wand,  travelled 
freely  by  all  the  roads  from  Eome,  unmolested,  received 
everywhere  with  joy.  "I  have  carried  this  wand,"  says 
one  of  them,  "  over  all  the  country  and  through  the  forests. 
Thousands  have  knelt  before  it  and  kissed  it  with  tears  of 
joy  for  the  safety  of  the  roads  and  the  banishment  of  the 
robbers."  The  effect  is  still  as  picturesque  as  eye  of  artist 
could  desire ;  the  white  figures  with  their  wands  of  peace 
traversing  everywhere  those  long  levels  of  the  Campagna, 
where  every  knot  of  brushwood,  all  the  coverts  of  the 
macchia  and  every  fortification  by  the  way,  had  swarmed 
with  robber  bands  —  unharmed,  unafraid,  like  angels  of 
safety  in  the  perturbed  country.  But  it  was  none  the  less 
real,  an  immense  and  extraordinary  revolution.  The  Buono 
Stato  was  proclaimed  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  Whit  Sun- 
day, May  20th,  1347 :  and  in  the  month  of  June  following, 
Cola  was  able  to  inform  the  world  —  that  is  to  say,  all 
Italy  and  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  —  that  the  roads  were 
safe  and  everything  going  well.  Clement  VI.  received  this 
report  at  Avignon  and  replied  to  it,  giving  his  sanction  to 
what  had  been  done,  "seeing  that  the  new  constitution 
had  been  established  without  violence  or  bloodshed,"  and 


434  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

confirming  the  authority  of  Cola  and  of  his  bishop  and 
co-tribune,  in  letters  dated  the  27th  of  June. 

Nor  was  the  change  within  the  city  less  great.  The 
dues  levied  by  their  previous  holders  on  every  bridge,  on 
all  merchandise  and  every  passer-by,  were  either  turned 
into  a  modest  octroi,  or  abolished  altogether ;  every  man's 
goods  were  safe  in  his  house ;  the  women  were  free  to  go 
about  their  various  occupations,  the  wife  safe  in  the  soli- 
tude of  her  home,  in  her  husband's  absence  at  his  work, 
the  girls  at  their  sewing — in  itself  a  revolution  past  count- 
ing. R-ome  began  to  breathe  again  and  realise  that  her 
evil  times  were  over,  and  that  the  Buono  Stato  meant  com- 
fort as  well  as  justice.  The  new  Tribune  made  glorious 
sights,  too,  for  all  bystanders  in  these  June  days.  He  rode 
to  Church,  for  example,  in  state  on  the  feast  of  Santo  Janni 
di  Jugnio,  St.  John  the  Baptist,  the  great  Midsummer  festa, 
a  splendid  sight  to  behold. 

"The  first  to  come  was  a  militia  of  armed  men  on  horseback,  well 
dressed  and  adorned,  to  make  way  before  the  Praef  ect.  Then  followed 
the  officials,  judges,  notaries,  peacemakers,  syndics,  and  others  ;  fol- 
lowed by  the  four  marshals  with  their  mounted  escort.  Then  came 
Janni  d'Allo  carrying  the  cup  of  silver  gilt  in  which  was  the  offering, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Senators  :  who  was  followed  by  more  soldiers 
on  horseback  and  the  trumpeters,  sounding  their  silver  trumpets,  the 
silver  mouths  making  an  honest  and  magnificent  sound.  Then  came 
the  public  criers.  All  these  passed  in  silence.  After  came  one  man 
alone,  bearing  a  naked  sword  in  sign  of  justice.  Baccio,  the  son  of 
Jubileo,  was  he.  Then  followed  a  man  scattering  money  on  each  side 
all  along  the  way,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Emperors :  Liello 
Magliari  was  his  name  —  he  was  accompanied  by  two  persons  carry- 
ing a  sack  of  money.  After  this  came  the  Tribune,  alone.  He  rode 
on  a  great  charger,  dressed  in  silk,  that  is  velvet,  half  green  and  half 
yellow,  furred  with  minever.  In  his  right  hand  he  carried  a  wand 
of  steel,  polished  and  shining,  surmounted  by  an  apple  of  silver  gilt, 
and  above  the  apple  a  cross  of  gold  in  which  was  a  fragment  of  the 
Holy  Cross.  On  one  side  of  this  were  letters  in  enamel,  'Deus,'  and 
on  the  other  '  Spiritus  Sanctus.'  Immediately  after  him  came  Cecco 
di  Alasso,  carrying  a  banner  after  the  mode  of  kings.  The  standard 
was  white  with  a  sun  of  gold  set  round  with  silver  stars  on  a  field  of 
blue  :  and  it  was  surmounted  by  a  white  dove,  bearing  in  its  beak  a 
crown  of  olive.  On  the  right  and  left  came  fifty  vassals  of  Vetorchiano 
on  foot  with  clubs  in  their  hands,  like  bears  clothed  and  armed.  Then 


in.]  THE  BUONO  STATO.  435 

followed  a  crowd  of  people  unarmed,  the  rich  and  the  powerful,  coun- 
sellors, and  many  honest  people.  With  such  triumph  and  glory  came 
he  to  the  bridge  of  San  Pietro,  where  every  one  saluted,  the  gates  were 
thrown  wide,  and  the  road  left  spacious  and  free.  When  he  had  reached 
the  steps  of  San  Pietro  all  the  clergy  came  forth  to  meet  him  in  their 
vestments  and  ornaments.  With  white  robes,  with  crosses  and  with 
great  order,  they  came  chanting  Veni  Creator  Spiritus,  and  so  received 
him  with  much  joy." 

This  is  how  Cola  rode  from  the  Capitol  to  St.  Peter's, 
traversing  almost  the  whole  of  the  existing  city :  his  offer- 
ing borne  before  him  after  the  manner  of  the  Senators  : 
money  scattered  among  the  people  after  the  manner  of 
the  Emperors :  his  banner  carried  as  before  kings :  united 
every  great  rank  in  one.  Panem  et  circenses  were  all  the 
old  Roman  populace  had  cared  for.  He  gave  them  peace 
and  safety  and  beautiful  processions  and  allegories  to  their 
hearts'  content.  There  were  not  signs  wanting  for  those 
who  divined  them  afterwards,  that  with  all  this  triumph 
and  glory  the  Tribune  began  a  little  to  lose  his  self-restraint. 
He  began  to  make  feasts  and  great  entertainments  at  the 
Capitol.  The  palaces  of  the  forfeited  nobles  were  emptied 
of  their  beautiful  tapestries,  and  hangings,  and  furniture, 
to  make  the  long  disused  rooms  there  splendid ;  and  the 
nobles  were  fined  a  hundred  florins  each  for  repairs  to  this 
half-royal,  half -ruinous  abode,  making  it  glorious  once  more. 

But  in  the  meantime  everything  went  well.  One  of  the 
Colonnas,  Pietro  of  Agapito1  —  who  ought  to  have  been 
Senator  for  the  year  —  was  taken  and  sent  to  prison,  whether 
for  that  offence  merely  or  some  other  we  are  not  told ;  while 
the  rest  of  the  house,  with  old  Stefano  at  their  head,  kept  a 
stormy  quiet  at  Palestrina,  saying  nothing  as  yet.  Answers 
to  Cola's  letters  came  from  all  the  states  around,  in  congrat- 
ulation and  friendship,  the  Pope  himself,  as  we  have  seen, 
at  the  head  of  all.  "  All  Italy  was  roused,"  says  Petrarch. 
"  The  terror  of  the  Roman  name  extended  even  to  countries 

1  A  necessary  distinction  when  there  were  so  many  of  the  same 
name  —  i.e.,  Pietro  the  son  of  Agapito,  nephew  of  old  Stefano. 


436  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

far  away.  I  was  then  in  France  and  I  know  what  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  and  on  the  faces  of  the  most  important 
personages  there.  Now  that  the  needle  has  ceased  to  prick, 
they  may  deny  it ;  but  then  all  were  full  of  alarm,  so  great 
still  was  the  name  of  Eome.  ISTo  one  could  tell  how  soon  a 
movement  so  remarkable,  taking  place  in  the  first  city  of 
the  world,  might  penetrate  into  other  places. "  The  Soldan 
of  Babylon  himself,  that  great  potentate,  hearing  that  a  man 
of  great  justice  had  arisen  in  Rome,  called  aloud  upon  Ma- 
homet and  Saint  Elimason  (whoever  that  might  be)  to  help 
Jerusalem,  meaning  Saracinia,  our  chronicler  tells  us.  Thus 
the  sensation  produced  by  Cola's  revolution  ran  through  the 
world :  and  if  after  a  while  his  mind  lost  something  of  its 
balance,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  read  the 
long  and  flattering  letters,  some  of  which  have  been  pre- 
served, which  Petrarch  talks  of  writing  to  him  "  every  day  " : 
and  in  which  he  is  proclaimed  greater  than  Romulus,  whose 
city  was  small  and  surrounded  with  stakes  only,  while  that 
of  Cola  was  great  and  defended  by  invincible  walls :  and  than 
Brutus  who  withstood  one  tyrant  only,  while  Cola  overthrew 
many :  and  than  Carnillus,  who  repaired  ruins  still  smoking 
and  recent,  while  Cola  restored  those  which  were  ancient 
and  inveterate  almost  beyond  hope.  For  one  wonderful 
moment  both  friends  and  foes  seem  to  have  believed  that 
Rome  had  at  one  step  recovered  the  empire  of  the  world. 

Cola  had  thus  triumphed  everywhere  by  peaceful  methods, 
but  he  had  yet  to  prove  what  he  could  do  in  arms ;  and  the 
opportunity  soon  occurred.  The  only  one  of  the  nobles 
who  had  not  yielded  at  least  a  pretence  of  submission  was 
Giovanni  di  Vico,  of  the  family  of  the  Gaetani,  who  had 
held  the  office  of  Praefect  of  Rome,  and  was  Lord  of  Viterbo. 
Against  him  the  Tribune  sent  an  expedition  under  one  of 
the  Orsini,  which  defeated  and  crushed  the  rebel,  who,  on 
hearing  that  Cola  himself  was  coming  to  join  his  forces, 
gave  himself  up  and  was  brought  into  Rome  to  make  his 


in.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  437 

submission :  so  that  in  this  way  also  the  triumph  of  the 
popular  leader  was  complete.  All  the  surrounding  castles 
fell  into  his  hands,  Civita  Vecchia  on  one  hand  and  Viterbo 
on  the  other;  and  he  employed  a  captain  of  one  family 
against  the  rebels  of  another  with  such  skill  and  force  that 
all  were  kept  within  control. 

Up  to  the  end  of  July  this  state  of  affairs  continued  un- 
broken ;  success  on  every  side,  and  apparently  a  new  hope 
for  Italy,  possibly  deliverance  for  the  world.  The  Tribune 
seemed  safe  as  any  monarch  on  his  seat,  and  still  bore  him- 
self with  something  of  the  simplicity  and  steadfastness  of 
his  beginning.  But  this  began  to  modify  by  degrees.  Espe- 
cially after  his  easy  victory  over  Giovanni  di  Vico,  he  seems 
to  have  treated  the  nobles  whom  he  had  crushed  under  his 
heel  with  contemptuous  incivility,  which  is  the  less  wonder- 
ful when  we  see  how  Petrarch,  courtly  as  he  was,  speaks  of 
the  same  class,  acknowledging  even  his  beloved  Colonnas 
to  be  unworthy  of  the  Eoman  name.  The  Tribune  sat  in 
his  chair  of  state,  while  the  barons  were  required  to  stand 
in  his  presence,  with  their  arms  folded  on  their  breasts  and 
their  heads  uncovered.  His  wife,  who  was  beautiful  and 
young,  was  escorted  by  a  guard  of  honour  wherever  she 
went  and  attended  by  the  noblest  ladies  of  Eome.  The  old 
palace  of  the  Campidoglio  was  gay  with  feasts ;  its  dilapi- 
dated walls  were  adorned  with  the  rich  hangings  taken  from 
the  confiscated  houses  of  the  potenti.  And  then  the  Trib- 
une's poor  relations  began  to  be  separated  from  the  crowd, 
to  ride  about  on  fine  horses  and  dwell  in  fine  houses.  And 
the  sights  and  spectacles  provided  for  the  people,  as  well  as 
the  steps  taken  by  Cola  himself  to  enhance  his  dignity  and 
to  occupy  the  attention  of  everybody  around,  began  to  as- 
sume a  fantastic  character.  An  uneasy  vainglory,  a  desire 
to  be  always  executing  some  feat  or  developing  some  new 
pretension,  a  restless  strain  after  the  histrionic  and  dra- 
matic began  to  show  themselves  in  him  —  as  if  he  felt  that 


438  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

his  tenure  somehow  demanded  a  continued  supply  of  such 
amusements  for  the  people,  who  rushed  to  gaze  and  admire 
whatever  he  did,  and  filled  the  air  with  vivas:  yet  began 
secretly  in  their  hearts,  as  Lo  Popolo  always  does,  to  com- 
ment upon  the  extravagance  of  the  Tribune,  and  the  elevation 
over  their  heads  of  Janni  the  barber,  for  instance,  who  now 
rode  about  so  grandly  with  a  train  of  attendants,  as  if,  in- 
stead of  being  popolo  like  themselves,  he  were  one  of  the 
potenti  whom  his  nephew  Cola  had  cast  down  from  their 
seats. 

One  of  the  first  great  acts  which  denotes  this  trembling 
of  sound  reason  in  the  Tribune's  soul  was  the  fantastic 
ceremony  by  which  he  made  himself  a  knight,  to  the  won- 
der of  all  Eome.  It  was  not,  all  the  historians  tell  us,  a 
strange  or  unheard-of  thing  that  the  City  should  create 
cavalieri  of  its  own.  Florence  had  done  it,  and  Home  also 
had  done  it  —  in  the  case  of  Stefano  Colonna  and  some 
others  very  shortly  before  —  but  with  at  least  the  pretence 
of  an  honour  conferred  by  the  people  on  citizens  selected 
by  their  fellow-citizens.  Nothing  of  the  kind  was  possible 
with  Cola  di  Kienzi,  and  no  illusion  was  attempted  on  the 
subject.  He  was  supreme  in  all  things,  and  it  pleased  him 
to  take  this  dignity  to  himself.  No  doubt  there  was  an 
ambitious  purpose  hidden  under  the  external  ceremony, 
which  from  the  outside  looked  so  much  like  a  dramatic 
interlude  to  amuse  the  people,  and  a  satisfaction  of  vanity 
on  his  own  part.  Both  these  things  no  doubt  had  their 
share,  but  they  were  not  all.  He  made  extraordinary  prep- 
arations for  the  success  and  6dat,  of  what  was  in  reality 
a  coup  d'etat  of  the  most  extraordinary  kind.  First  of  all 
he  fortified  himself  by  the  verdict  of  all  the  learned  law- 
yers in  Borne,  to  whom  he  submitted  the  question  whether 
the  Roman  people  had  the  right  to  resume  into  their  own 
hands,  and  exercise,  the  authority  which  had  been  used  by 
tyrants  in  the  name  of  the  city  —  a  question  to  which  there 


m.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  439 

could  be  but  one  answer,  by  acclamation.  These  rights  had 
always  been  claimed  as  absolute  and  supreme  by  whatsoever 
leaders  the  people  of  Rome  had  permitted  to  speak  for  them, 
or  whom,  more  truly,  they  had  followed  like  sheep.  Twenty 
years  before,  as  we  have  seen,  they  had  been  by  way  of 
conferring  the  crown  of  the  Empire  upon  Louis  of  Bavaria. 
It  was  a  pretension  usually  crushed  in  its  birth  as  even  II 
Bavaro  did  by  receiving  the  same  crown  a  second  time  from 
his  anti-Pope ;  but  it  was  one  which  had  been  obstinately 
held,  especially  in  the  disorderly  ranks  of  Lo  Popolo,  and 
by  visionaries  of  all  kinds.  The  Popes  had  taken  that  con- 
trol out  of  the  hands  of  Rome  and  claimed  it  for  the  Church 
with  such  success  as  we  have  attempted  to  trace ;  but  that 
in  one  form  or  another  the  reigning  city  of  the  world  had 
always  a  right  to  this  supremacy  was  held  by  all.  In  both 
cases  it  had  been  in  a  great  degree  a  visionary  and  unreal 
claim,  never  practically  accepted  by  the  world,  and  the 
cause  of  endless  futile  struggles  to  overcome  might  with 
(hypothetical)  right. 

Cola  however,  as  we  have  seen,  had  as  high  a  conception 
of  those  claims  of  Eome  as  Gregory  had,  or  Innocent.  He 
believed  that  in  its  own  right  the  old  Imperial  race  —  which 
was  as  little  Imperial  by  this  time,  as  little  assured  in  de- 
scent and  as  devoid  of  all  royal  qualities  as  any  tribe  of 
barbarians  —  retained  still  the  sway  over  the  world  which 
had  been  enforced  by  the  Imperial  legions  under  the  great- 
est generals  in  the  world.  The  enthusiasts  for  this  theory 
have  been  able  to  shut  their  eyes  to  all  the  laws  of  nature 
and  government,  and  with  the  strangest  superstition  have 
clung  to  the  ghost  of  what  was  real  only  by  stress  of  supe- 
rior power  and  force,  when  all  force  had  departed  out  of  the 
hands  which  were  but  as  painted  shadows  of  the  past.  It 
is  strange  to  conceive  by  what  possible  reasoning  a  conflict- 
ing host  of  mediaeval  barons  of  the  most  mixed  blood,  this 
from  the  Rhine,  that  from  the  south  of  Italy,  as  Petrarch 


440  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

describes  on  more  than  one  occasion,  of  no  true  patri- 
cian stock:  and  the  remains  of  a  constantly  subject  and 
enslaved  people,  never  of  any  account  except  in  moments 
of  revolution  —  could  be  made  to  occupy  the  place  in  the 
world  which  Imperial  Some,  the  only  conqueror,  the  sole 
autocrat  of  the  world,  had  held.  The  Popes  had  another 
and  more  feasible  claim.  They  were  the  heads  of  a  spirit- 
ual Empire,  standing  by  right  of  their  office  between  God 
and  the  world,  with  a  right  (as  they  believed)  to  arbitrate 
and  to  ordain,  as  representatives  of  heaven;  a  perfectly 
legitimate  right,  if  allowed  by  those  subject  to  it,  or  proved 
by  sufficient  evidence.  Cola,  with  a  curious  twist  of  intel- 
ligence and  meaning,  attempted  to  combine  both  claims. 
He  was  the  messenger  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  well  as  the 
Tribune  of  the  City.  Only  by  the  immediate  action  of  God, 
as  he  held,  could  such  a  sudden  and  complete  revolution  as 
that  which  had  put  the  power  into  his  hands  have  been 
accomplished:  therefore  he  was  appointed  by  God.  But 
he  was  also  the  representative  of  the  people,  entrusted  by 
Eome  with  complete  power.  The  spheres  of  these  two 
sublime  influences  were  confused.  Sometimes  he  acted  as 
inspired  by  one,  sometimes  asserted  himself  as  the  imper- 
sonation of  the  other.  Knight  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  was 
invested  with  the  white  robes  of  supernatural  purity  and 
right  —  Tribune  of  Eome,  he  held  the  mandate  of  the  peo- 
ple and  wielded  the  power  which  was  its  birthright.  This 
was  the  dazzling,  bewildering  position  and  supremacy  which 
he  was  now  to  claim  before  the  world. 

He  had  invited  all  the  States  of  Italy  to  send  deputations 
of  their  citizens  to  Eome,  and  the  invitation  had  been 
largely  accepted.  Prom  Florence,  Sienna,  Perugia,  and  many 
other  lesser  cities,  the  representatives  of  the  people  came  to 
swell  his  train.  The  kings  of  France  and  England  made 
answer  by  letter  in  tones  of  amity ;  from  Germany  Louis  of 
Bavaria  hailed  the  Tribune  in  friendly  terms,  requesting  his 


HI.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  441 

intercession  with,  the  Pope.  The  Venetians,  and  "  Messer 
Luchino  il  grarine  tyranno  de  Milano"  also  sent  letters; 
and  ambassadors  came  from  Sicily  and  from  Hungary,  both 
claiming  the  help  of  Borne.  Everything  was  joy  and  tri- 
umph in  the  city.  It  was  the  1st  of  August  —  a  great  festi- 
val, the  day  of  the  Feriae  Augusti  —  Feragosto,  according  to 
the  Roman  patois  —  among  the  populace  which  no  longer 
knew  what  that  meant ;  but  Cola,  who  was  better  instructed, 
had  chosen  it  because  of  its  significance.  He  rode  to  the 
Lateran  in  the  afternoon  in  great  splendour.  It  was  in  the 
Church's  calendar  the  vigil  of  San  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  the  anni- 
versary of  the  chains  of  the  Apostle,  which  the  Empress 
Eudoxia  had  brought  with  great  solemnity  to  Rome.  "  All 
Rome,"  says  the  chronicler,  "men  and  women  rushed  to 
St.  John  Lateran,  taking  places  under  the  portico  to  see  the 
festa,  and  crowding  the  streets  to  behold  this  triumph. 

"  Then  came  many  cavaliers  of  all  nations,  barons  and  people,  and 
Foresi  with  breastplates  of  bells,  clothed  in  samite,  and  with  banners  ; 
they  made  great  festivity,  and  there  were  games  and  rejoicings,  jug- 
glers and  buffoons  without  end.  There  sounded  the  trumpets,  here 
the  bagpipes,  and  the  cannon  was  fired.  Then,  accompanied  with 
music,  came  the  wife  of  Cola  on  foot  with  her  mother,  and  attended 
by  many  ladies.  Behind  the  ladies  came  young  men  finely  dressed, 
carrying  the  bridle  of  a  horse  gilt  and  ornamented.  There  were  silver 
trumpets  without  number,  and  you  could  see  the  trumpeters  blow. 
Afterwards  came  a  multitude  of  horsemen,  the  first  of  whom  were 
from  Perugia  and  Corneto.  Twice  they  threw  off  their  silver  robes.1 
Then  came  the  Tribune  with  the  Pope's  Vicar  by  his  side.  Before  the 
Tribune  was  seen  one  who  carried  a  naked  sword,  another  carried  a 
banner  over  his  head.  In  his  own  hand  he  bore  a  steel  wand.  Many 
and  many  nobles  were  with  him.  He  was  clothed  in  a  long  white 
robe,  worked  with  gold  thread.  Between  day  and  night  he  came  out 
into  the  Chapel  of  Pope  Benedict  to  the  loggia  and  spoke  to  the 
people,  saying,  '  You  know  that  this  night  I  am  to  be  made  knight. 
When  you  come  back  you  shall  hear  things  which  will  be  pleasing  to 
God  in  heaven  and  to  men  on  earth.'  He  spoke  in  such  a  way  that 
in  so  great  a  multitude  there  was  nothing  but  gladness,  neither  horror 
nor  arms.  Two  men  quarrelled  and  drew  their  swords,  but  were  soon 
persuaded  to  return  them  to  their  scabbards.  .  .  .  When  all  had  gone 
away  the  clergy  celebrated  a  solemn  service,  and  the  Tribune  entered 

1  Changed  their  dresses,  throwing  those  which  they  took  off  among 
the  people. 


442  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

into  the  Baptistery  and  bathed  himself  in  the  shell 1  of  the  Emperor 
Constantine  which  was  of  precious  porphyry.  Marvellous  is  this  to 
say ;  and  much  was  it  talked  of  among  the  people.  Then  he  slept 
upon  a  venerable  bed,  lying  in  that  place  called  San  Giovanni  in  Fonte 
within  the  circuit  of  the  columns.  There  he  passed  the  night,  which 
was  a  great  wonder.  The  bed  and  bedding  were  new,  and  as  the 
Tribune  got  up  from  it  some  part  of  it  fell  to  the  ground  in  the  silence 
of  the  night.  In  the  morning  he  clothed  himself  in  scarlet ;  the  sword 
was  girt  upon  him  by  Messer  Vico  degli  Scotti,  and  the  gold  spurs  of 
a  knight.  All  Home,  and  every  knight  among  them,  had  come  back 
to  San  Giovanni,  also  all  the  barons  and  strangers,  to  behold  Messer 
Cola  di  Rienzi  as  a  knight." 

The  chronicle  goes  on  to  tell  us  after  this,  how  Cola  went 
forth  upon  the  loggia  of  Pope  Benedict's  Chapel,  while  a 
solemn  mass  was  being  performed,  and  addressed  the  people. 

"  And  with  a  great  voice  he  cited,  first, '  Messer  Papa  Chimente '  to 
return  to  his  See  in  Rome,  and  afterwards  cited  the  College  of  the 
Cardinals.  Then  he  cited  the  Bavarian.  Then  he  cited  the  electors 
of  the  Empire  in  Germany  saying,  <  I  would  see  what  right  they  have 
to  elect,'  for  it  was  written  that  after  a  certain  time  had  elapsed  the 
election  fell  to  the  Romans.  When  this  citation  was  made,  imme- 
diately there  appeared  letters  and  couriers  to  carry  them,  who  were 
sent  at  once  on  their  way.  Then  he  took  the  sword  and  drew  it  from 
its  scabbard,  and  waved  it  to  the  three  quarters  of  the  world  saying, 
'  This  is  mine  ;  and  this  is  mine  ;  and  this  is  mine. '  The  Vicar  of  the 
Pope  was  present,  who  stood  like  a  dumb  man  and  an  idiot  stupefied 
by  this  new  thing.  He  had  his  notary  with  him,  who  protested  and 
said  that  these  things  were  not  done  by  his  consent,  and  that  he  had 
neither  any  knowledge  of  them,  nor  sanction  from  the  Pope.  And  he 
prayed  the  notary  to  draw  out  his  protest  publicly.  While  the  notary 
made  this  protest  crying  out  with  a  loud  voice,  Messer  Cola  com- 
manded the  trumpets  and  all  the  other  instruments  to  play,  that  the 
voice  of  the  notary  might  not  be  heard,  the  greater  noise  swallowing 
up  the  lesser." 

These  were  the  news  which  Cola  had  promised  to  let  the 
crowd  know  when  they  returned  —  news  pleasing  to  God 
and  to  men.  But  there  were  no  doubt  many  searchings  of 
heart  in  the  great  crowd  that  filled  the  square  of  the  Lat- 
eran,  straining  to  hear  his  voice,  as  he  claimed  the  dominion 
of  the  world,  and  called  upon  Pope  and  Emperor  to  appear 
before  him.  No  wonder  if  the  Pope's  Vicar  was  "  stupefied  " 

1  The  bath,  or  baptismal  vase  of  Constantine  (so-called)  here  re- 
ferred to,  still  stands  in  the  Baptistery  of  the  Lateran. 


in.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  443 

and  would  take  no  part  in  these  strange  proceedings.  It  was 
probably  the  Notary  of  the  Commune  and  not  Cola  himself 
who  published  the  citations,  and  the  authority  for  them,  set 
forth  at  length,  which  were  enough  to  blanch  the  cheeks  of 
any  Vicar  of  the  Pope. 

"In  the  sanctuary,  that  is  the  Baptistery,  of  the  holy  prince  Con- 
stantine  of  glorious  memory,  we  have  received  the  bath  of  chivalry ; 
under  the  conduct  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  unworthy  servant  and 
soldier  we  are,  and  for  the  glory  of  the  Holy  Church  our  mother,  and 
our  lord  the  Pope,  and  also  for  the  happiness  and  advantage  of  the 
holy  city  of  Eome,  of  holy  Italy  and  of  all  Christendom,  we,  knight 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  as  such  clothed  in  white,  Nicolas,  severe  and 
clement,  liberator  of  the  city,  defender  of  Italy,  friend  of  mankind,  and 
august  Tribune,  we  who  wish  and  desire  that  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
should  be  received  and  should  increase  throughout  Italy,  and  intend, 
as  God  enables  us,  to  imitate  the  bounty  and  generosity  of  ancient 
princes,  we  make  known  :  that  when  we  accepted  the  dignity  of 
Tribune  the  Koman  people,  according  to  the  opinions  of  all  the  judges, 
lawyers,  and  learned  authorities,  recognised  that  they  possessed  still 
the  same  authority,  power  and  jurisdiction  over  all  the  earth  which 
belonged  to  them  in  primitive  times,  and  at  the  period  of  their  greatest 
splendour :  and  they  have  revoked  formally  all  the  privileges  accorded 
to  others  against  that  same  authority,  power,  and  jurisdiction.  There- 
fore in  conformity  with  those  ancient  rights  and  the  unlimited  power 
which  has  been  conferred  upon  us  by  the  people  in  a  general  assembly, 
and  also  by  our  lord  the  Pope,  as  is  proved  by  his  bulls  apostolical : 
and  that  we  may  not  be  ungrateful  to  the  grace  and  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  or  avaricious  of  this  same  grace  and  gift  in  respect  to  the 
Koman  people  and  the  peoples  of  Italy  above  mentioned :  in  order 
also  that  the  rights  and  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  people  may  not  be 
lost :  we  resolve  and  announce,  in  virtue  of  the  power  and  grace  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  in  the  form  most  feasible  and  just,  that  the  holy 
city  of  Rome  is  the  head  of  the  world  and  the  foundation  of  Christian 
faith:  and  we  declare  that  all  the  cities  of  Italy  are  free,  and  we 
accord  and  have  accorded  to  these  cities  an  entire  freedom,  and  from 
to-day  constitute  them  Roman  citizens,  declaring,  announcing,  and 
ordaining  that  henceforward  they  should  enjoy  the  privileges  of 
Roman  freedom. 

"  In  addition,  and  in  virtue  of  the  same  puissance  and  grace  of  God, 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  of  the  Roman  people,  we  assert,  recognise  and 
declare  that  the  choice  of  the  Roman  Emperor,  the  jurisdiction  and 
dominion  over  all  the  holy  empire,  belongs  to  the  Holy  City  itself, 
and  to  holy  Italy  by  several  causes  and  reasons  ;  and  we  make  known 
by  this  decree  to  all  prelates,  elected  emperors,  and  electors,  to  the 
kings,  dukes,  princes,  counts,  and  margraves,  to  the  people,  to  the 
corporations,  and  to  all  others  who  contradict  this  and  exercise  any 
supposed  right  in  respect  to  the  choice  of  the  empire,  that  they  are 
called  to  appear  to  explain  their  pretensions  in  the  Church  of  the 


444:  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

Lateran,  before  us  and  the  other  commissioners  of  our  lord  the  Pope  be- 
tween this  and  Pentecost  of  next  year,  and  that  after  that  time  we  shall 
proceed  according  to  our  rights  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

The  instrument  is  very  long  drawn  out  and  entangled  in 
its  sentences,  but  the  claim  set  forth  in  it  is  very  clear,  and 
arrogant  as  that  of  any  Forged  Decretals  or  Papal  Bull. 
Its  tone  makes  every  pretension  of  the  Popes  sound  humble, 
and  every  assertion  of  their  power  reasonable.  But  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  was  perfectly  sincere.  Some 
was  a  word  which  went  to  the  heads  of  every  one  connected 
with  that  wonderful  city.  Nothing  was  too  great  for  her ; 
no  exaltation  too  high.  To  transfer  the  election  of  the 
Emperor  from  the  great  German  princes  to  the  populace  of 
Eome,  fickle  and  ignorant,  led  by  whoever  came  uppermost, 
was  a  fantastic  imagination,  which  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  believe  any  sane  man  could  entertain.  Yet  Cola  thought 
it  just  and  true,  the  only  thing  to  be  done  in  order  to  turn 
earth  into  a  sort  of  heaven ;  and  Petrarch,  a  more  prudent 
man,  thought  the  same.  To  the  poet  Cola's  enterprise  was 
the  hope  of  Italy  and  of  the  world :  and  it  was  at  this  mo- 
ment, when  the  Tribune  was  in  the  full  flush  of  his  triumph, 
that  Petrarch  addressed  to  him,  besides  a  promise  of  a  poem 
supposed  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  Spirto  Gentil,  a  long  letter, 
Esortatoria,  in  which  he  exhorts  him  to  pursue  the  "  happy 
success "  of  his  "  most  glorious  undertaking,"  by  sobriety 
and  modesty  it  is  true,  but  also  by  gladness  and  triumph,  in 
order  that  the  city  "  chosen  by  all  the  world  as  the  seat  of 
empire,"  should  not  relapse  into  slavery.  "  Rome,  queen  of 
cities,  lady  of  the  world,  head  of  the  empire,  seat  of  the 
great  Pontiff,"  her  claim  to  dominion  was  not  doubted  by 
those  strange  enthusiasts.  She  was  an  abstraction,  an  ideal 
wisdom  and  power  personified  —  not  even  in  a  race,  not  in  a 
great  man  or  men,  but  in  the  city,  and  that  ever  wavering 
tumultuous  voice  of  the  populace,  blown  hither  and  thither 
by  every  wind.  And  Cola  believed  himself  to  hold  in  his 


HI.]  THE  BUONO  STATO.  445 

hands  the  fortunes  and  interests  of  Christendom  entire,  the 
dominion  of  the  whole  world.  No  enthusiasm,  no  delu- 
sion, could  be  more  extraordinary. 

The  ceremonies  of  August  did  not  finish  with  this.  An- 
other prodigious  ceremonial  was  celebrated  on  the  day  of 
the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  the  fifteenth  of  that  month, 
also  a  great  Roman  holiday.  On  this  day  there  was  once 
more  a  great  function  in  the  Church  of  the  Lateran.  The 
Pope's  Vicar  refused  to  preside,  awaiting  in  the  meantime 
orders  from  headquarters.  But  this  did  not  arrest  these 
curious  proceedings.  This  time  it  was  the  coronation  of 
the  Tribune  that  was  in  question.  He  had  made  himself 
a  knight,  and  even  had  invented  an  order  for  himself,  the 
order  of  those  "Clothed  in  White/7  the  Knights  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Now  he  was  to  be  crowned  according  to  his 
fashion.  The  chronicler  of  the  life  of  Cola,  however,  takes 
no  notice  of  this  ceremony.  It  was  begun  by  the  Prior  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  who  advanced  to  the  Tribune  and  gave 
him  a  crown  of  oak-leaves,  with  the  words,  "Take  this 
oaken  crown  because  thou  hast  delivered  the  citizens  from 
death."  After  him  came  the  Prior  of  St.  Peter's  with  a 
crown  of  ivy,  saying,  "Take  this  ivy  because  thou  hast 
loved  religion."  The  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  came  next  with 
a  crown  of  myrtle,  "  Because  thou  hast  done  thy  duty  and 
preserved  justice,  and  hast  hated  bribes."  The  Prior  of 
St.  Lorenzo  brought  a  crown  of  laurel,  he  of  Sta.  Maria 
Maggiore  one  of  olive,  with  the  not  very  suitable  address, 
"  Take  this,  man  of  humble  mind,  because  in  thee  humility 
has  overcome  pride."  Finally  the  Prior  of  the  hospital  of 
Santo  Spirito  presented  Cola  with  a  silver  crown  and  a 
sceptre,  saying,  "Illustrious  Tribune,  receive  this  crown 
and  sceptre,  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  along  with  the 
spiritual  crown."  This,  one  would  suppose,  must  have  been 
an  interpolation ;  for  Groffredo  degli  Scotti,  who  had  belted 
on  his  sword  as  a  knight,  was  present  with  another  silver 


446  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

crown,  given  by  the  people  of  Kome,  which  was  surmounted 
by  a  cross,  and  which  was  presented  to  Cola  with  the  words : 
"  Illustrious  Tribune,  receive  this :  exercise  justice,  and  give 
us  freedom  and  peace." 

The  reader  will  be  tempted  to  imagine  that  Cola  must 
have  been  weighed  down  by  this  pyramid  of  wreaths,  like  a 
French  schoolboy  in  his  moment  of  triumph.  But  in  the 
midst  of  all  these  glorious  surroundings  his  dramatic  imagi- 
nation had  conceived  a  telling  way  of  getting  rid  of  them. 
By  his  side  stood  a  man  very  poorly  dressed  and  carrying 
a  sword,  with  which  he  took  off  in  succession  every  crown 
as  it  was  placed  upon  the  Tribune's  head,  "  in  sign  of  humil- 
ity and  because  the  Koman  Emperors  had  to  endure  every 
incivility  addressed  to  them  in  the  day  of  their  triumph." 
We  find,  however,  the  beggar  man  with  all  the  crowns 
spitted  upon  his  sword,  a  ridiculous  rather  than  an  expres- 
sive figure.  The  last  of  all,  the  silver  crown,  remained  on 
the  Tribune's  brows,  the  Archbishop  of  Naples  having  the 
courtly  inspiration  of  interposing  when  the  ragged  attend- 
ant would  have  taken  it.  All  the  different  wreaths  had 
classical  or  Scriptural  meanings.  They  were  made  from 
the  plants  that  grew  wild  about  the  Arch  of  Constantine ; 
everything  was  symbolical,  mystic  —  the  seven  gifts  of  the 
Spirit;  and  all  pervaded  by  that  fantastic  mixture  of  the 
old  and  the  new,  of  which  the  world  was  then  full. 

After  this  final  assertion  of  his  greatness  Cola  made  a 
speech  to  the  people  confirming  the  assertions  and  high- 
flown  pretensions  of  his  former  proclamation,  and  forbid- 
ding any  emperor,  king,  or  prince  whatsoever,  to  touch  the 
sacred  soil  of  Italy  without  the  consent  of  the  Pope  and 
the  Roman  people.  He  seems  to  have  concluded  by  for- 
bidding the  use  of  the  names  of  Gruelf  and  Ghibelline  — 
an  admirable  rule  could  it  have  been  carried  out. 

While  all  Eome  was  thus  swarming  in  the  streets,  filling 
up  every  available  inch  of  space  under  the  porticoes  and  in 


in.]  THE   BUONO   STATO.  447 

the  square  to  see  this  great  sight,  a  certain  holy  monk,  much 
esteemed  by  the  people,  was  found  weeping  and  praying  in 
one  of  the  chapels  of  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore,  while  the  Tribune 
in  all  his  state  was  receiving  crowns  and  homage.  One  of 
Cola's  domestic  priests,  who  officiated  in  the  private  chapel 
at  the  Capitol,  asked  Fra  Guglielmo  why  in  the  midst  of  so 
much  rejoicing  he  alone  was  sorrowful.  "  Thy  master/' 
said  the  monk,  "  has  fallen  from  heaven  to-day  !  Oh  that 
such  pride  should  have  entered  into  his  soul !  With  the 
help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  he  has  driven  the  tyrants  out  of 
Rome  without  striking  a  blow,  he  has  been  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  a  Tribune,  and  all  the  towns  and  all  the  lords  of 
Italy  have  done  him  honour.  Why  is  he  so  proud  and  so 
ungrateful  towards  the  Most  High,  and  why  does  he  dare  in 
an  insolent  address  to  compare  himself  to  his  Creator  ?  Say 
to  thy  master  that  nothing  will  expiate  such  a  crime  but 
tears  of  penitence."  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  there  were 
checks,  very  soon  apparent,  to  the  full  flood  of  enthusiasm 
and  faith  with  which  the  Tribune  had  been  received. 

Meanwhile  there  remained,  outside  of  all  these  triumphs 
and  rejoicings  and  the  immense  self-assertion  of  the  man 
who  in  the  name  of  Rome  claimed  a  sort  of  universal  do- 
minion—  a  strong  band  of  nobles  still  in  possession  of 
their  castles  and  strongholds  round  the  city,  grimly  watch- 
ing the  progress  of  affairs,  and  no  doubt  waiting  the 
moment  when  the  upstart  who  thus  had  pranked  himself  in 
all  the  finery  and  the  follies  of  royalty,  should  take  that 
step  too  far  which  is  always  to  be  expected  and  which 
should  decide  his  fate.  No  doubt  to  old  Stefano  Colonna, 
with  all  his  knowledge  of  men,  this  end  would  seem  com- 
ing on  very  surely  when  he  heard  of,  or  perhaps  witnessed, 
the  melodrama  of  the  knighthood,  the  farce  of  the  corona- 
tion. Cola  had  been  forced  to  take  advantage  of  the  ser- 
vices of  these  barons,  even  though  he  hated  them.  He  had 
put  an  Orsini  at  the  head  of  his  troops  against  the  Praefect 


448  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

Giovanni  di  Vico.  He  appointed  Janni  Colonna,  his  former 
patron,  who  had  laughed  at  him  so  heartily,  to  lead  the 
expedition  against  the  Gaetani.  Nowhere,  it  would  seem, 
among  the  men  who  were  popolari,  of  the  people,  was  the 
ghost  of  a  general  to  be  found.  The  nobles  had  been  at 
first  banished  from  Eome ;  but  their  good  behaviour  in  that 
great  matter  of  the  safety  of  the  roads,  or  else  the  difficulty 
of  acting  against  them  individually,  and  the  advice  of 
Petrarch  and  others  who  advised  great  caution,  had  no 
doubt  tacitly  broken  this  sentence,  and  permitted  their 
return.  Many  of  them  were  certainly  in  Rome,  going  and 
coming,  though  none  held  any  office ;  and  we  are  told  that 
old  Stefano  was  present  at  the  great  dinner  after  Cola  made 
himself  a  knight.  Perhaps  comments  were  made  upon 
those  ceremonies  which  reached  the  ears  of  the  Tribune ; 
perhaps  there  were  whispers  of  growing  impatience  in  the 
other  party,  or  hints  of  plots  among  them.  Or  perhaps  Cola, 
having  exhausted  all  other  methods  of  giving  to  himself  and 
Rome  a  new  sensation,  bethought  himself  of  these  enemies 
of  the  Republic,  always  no  doubt  desirous  of  acting  against 
her,  whether  they  did  so  openly  or  not.  His  proceedings 
had  now  become  so  histrionic  that  it  is  permissible  to  sur- 
mise a  motive  which  otherwise  would  have  been  unworthy 
a  man  of  his  genius  and  natural  power ;  and  in  face  of  the 
curious  tragi-comedy  which  followed  it  is  difficult  not  to 
suspect  something  of  the  kind.  One  day  in  September  the 
Tribune  invited  a  number  of  the  nobles  to  a  great  dinner. 
The  list  given  in  the  Vita  includes  the  noblest  names  in 
Rome.  Stefano  Colonna  with  three  of  his  sons  —  Agapito 
and  "the  prosperous  youth"  Janni  (grandson)  and  Stefa- 
nello,  the  eldest  lay  member  of  the  family,  along  with  a 
number  of  the  Orsini,  Luca  de  Savelli,  the  Conte  di  Ver- 
tolle,  and  several  others.  The  feast  would  seem  to  have 
begun  with  apparent  cordiality  and  that  strained  politeness 
and  watchfulness  on  the  part  of  the  guests,  which  has  dis- 


m.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  449 

tinguished  many  fatal  banquets  in  which,  every  man  mis- 
trusted his  neighbour.  Cola  had  done  nothing  as  yet  to 
warrant  any  downright  suspicion  of  treachery,  but  most 
likely  the  barons  had  an  evil  conscience,  and  it  might  have 
been-  observed  that  the  Tribune's  courtesy  also  was  strained. 

"Towards  evening  the popolari  who  were  among  the  guests  began 
to  talk  of  the  defects  of  the  nobles,  and  the  goodness  of  the  Tribune. 
Then  Messer  Stefano  the  elder  began  a  question,  which  was  best  in  a 
Ruler  of  the  people,  to  be  prodigal  or  economical  ?  A  great  discussion 
arose  upon  this,  and  at  the  last  Messer  Stefano  took  up  a  corner  of 
Cola's  robe,  and  said,  '  To  thee,  Tribune,  it  would  be  more  suitable  to 
wear  an  honest  costume  of  cloth,  than  this  pompous  habit,'  and  saying 
this  he  showed  the  corner  of  the  robe.  When  Cola  heard  this  he  was 
troubled.  He  called  for  the  guard  and  had  them  all  arrested.  Messer 
Stefano  the  veteran  was  placed  in  an  adjoining  hall,  where  he  remained 
all  night  without  any  bed,  pacing  about  the  room,  and  knocking  at  the 
door  prayed  the  guards  to  free  him  :  but  the  guards  would  not  listen 
to  him.  Then  daylight  appeared.  The  Tribune  deliberated  whether 
he  should  not  cut  off  their  heads,  in  order  to  liberate  completely  the 
people  of  Rome.  He  gave  orders  that  the  Parlatorio  should  be  hung 
with  red  and  white  cloth,  which  was  the  signal  of  execution.  Then 
the  great  bell  was  rung  and  the  people  gathered  to  the  Capitol.  He 
sent  to  each  of  the  prisoners  a  confessor,  one  of  the  Minor  friars,  that 
they  might  rise  up  to  repentance  and  receive  the  body  of  Christ. 
When  the  Barons  became  aware  of  all  these  preparations  and  heard 
the  great  bell  ringing,  they  were  so  frozen  with  fear  that  they  could 
not  speak.  Most  of  them  humbled  themselves  and  made  their  peni- 
tence, and  received  the  communion.  Messer  Rainallo  degli  Orsini  and 
some  others,  because  they  had  in  the  morning  eaten  fresh  figs,  could 
not  receive,  and  Messer  Stefano  Colonna  would  not  confess,  nor  com- 
municate, saying  that  he  was  not  ready,  and  had  not  set  his  affairs  in 
order. 

"  In  the  meanwhile,  several  of  the  citizens,  considering  the  judgment 
that  was  about  to  be  made,  used  many  arguments  to  prevent  it  in 
soothing  and  peaceful  words.  At  last  the  Tribune  rose  from  the  coun- 
cil and  broke  up  the  debate.  It  was  now  the  hour  of  Tierce.  The 
Barons  as  condemned  persons  came  down  sadly  into  the  Parlatorio. 
The  trumpets  sounded  as  if  for  their  execution,  and  they  were  ranged 
in  face  of  the  people.  Then  the  Tribune  changed  his  purpose,  ascended 
the  platform,  and  made  a  beautiful  sermon.  He  repeated  the  Pater 
Noster,  that  part  which  says  '  Forgive  us  our  debts. '  Then  he  par- 
doned the  Barons  and  said  that  he  wished  them  to  be  in  the  service  of 
the  people,  and  made  peace  between  them  and  the  people.  One  by  one 
they  bowed  their  heads  to  the  people.  After  this  their  offices  were 
restored  to  them,  and  to  each  was  given  a  beautiful  robe  trimmed  with 
vair :  and  a  new  Gonfalon  was  made  with  wheatears  in  gold.  Then 
he  made  them  dine  with  him  and  afterwards  rode  through  the  city, 
leading  them  with  him ;  and  then  let  them  go  freely  on  their  way. 

2G 


450  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

This  that  was  done  much  displeased  all  discreet  persons  who  said, 
'  He  has  lighted  a  fire  and  flame  which  he  will  not  be  able  to  put 
out.'  " 

"  And  I,"  adds  the  chronicler,  "  said  this  proverb,"  which 
was  by  no  means  a  decorous  one :  its  meaning  was  that  it 
was  useless  to  make  a  smell  of  gunpowder  and  shoot  no  one. 

The  Tribune's  dramatic  instincts  had  gone  too  far.  He 
had  indeed  produced  a  thrilling  sensation,  a  moment  of 
extreme  and  terrible  tragic  apprehension;  but  he  forgot 
that  he  was  playing  with  men,  not  puppets,  and  that  the 
mercy  thus  accorded  after  they  had  been  brought  through 
the  bitterness  of  death,  was  not  likely  to  be  received  as 
a  generous  boon  by  these  shamed  and  outraged  patricians, 
who  were  as  much  insulted  by  his  mercy  as  they  were  in- 
jured by  his  fictitious  condemnation.  They  must  have  fol- 
lowed him  in  that  ride  through  Rome  with  hearts  burning 
within  them,  the  furred  mantles  which  were  his  gifts  like 
badges  of  shame  upon  their  shoulders  :  and  each  made  his 
way,  as  soon  as  they  were  free,  outside  the  gates  to  their 
own  castles,  with  fury  in  their  hearts.  These  men  were  not 
of  the  kind  upon  whom  so  tragic  a  jest  could  be  played. 
Old  Stefano  and  his  sons,  having  suffered  the  further  in- 
dignity of  being  created  by  that  rascal  multitude  patricians 
and  consuls,  went  off  to  their  impregnable  Palestrina,  and 
the  Orsini  to  Marino,  an  equally  strong  place.  Hencefor- 
ward there  was.  no  peace  possible  between  the  Tribune  and 
the  nobles  of  Rome.  "  He  drew  back  from  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  treachery,"  says  his  modern  biographer 
Papencordt.  Did  he  ever  intend  to  do  more  than  was 
done  ?  It  seems  to  us  very  doubtful.  He  was  a  man 
of  sensations,  and  loved  a  thrilling  scene,  which  he  cer- 
tainly secured.  He  humiliated  his  foes  to  the  very  dust, 
and  made  a  situation  at  which  all  Rome  held  its  breath : 
the  tribunal  draped  as  for  a  sentence  of  death,  the  confessor 
at  every  man's  elbow,  the  populace  solemnly  assembled  to 


m.]  THE  BUONO  STATO.  451 

see  the  tyrants  die,  while  all  the  while  the  robes  with  their 
border  of  royal  minever  were  laid  ready,  and  the  banners 
worked  with  ears  of  wheat.  There  is  a  touch  almost  of 
the  mountebank  in  those  last  details.  Petrarch,  it  is 
curious  to  note,  disapproved,  not  of  the  trap  laid  for  the 
nobles,  or  the  circumstances  of  the  drama,  but  of  the 
failure  of  Cola  to  take  advantage  of  such  an  opportunity, 
"  an  occasion  such  as  fortune  never  gave  to  an  Emperor/' 
when  he  might  have  cut  off  at  a  single  blow  the  enemies  of 
freedom.  Perhaps  the  poet  was  right :  but  yet  Cola  in  his 
folly  would  have  been  a  worse  man  if  he  had  been  a  wiser 
one.  As  it  was  his  dramatic  instinct  was  his  ruin. 

The  barons  went  off  fra  denti  minacciavano,  swearing 
through  their  teeth,  and  it  was  not  long  before  the  Orsini, 
who  had  been,  up  to  that  tragic  banquet,  his  friends  and 
supporters,  had  entrenched  themselves  in  Marino,  and  were 
in  full  rebellion,  resuming  all  the  ancient  customs  of  their 
race,  and  ravaging  the  Campagna  to  the  very  gates  of  Rome. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  vintage,  which  for  once  it  had  seemed 
likely  would  be  made  in  peace  that  first  year  of  the  republic, 
if  never  before.  But  already  the  spell  of  the  short-lived 
peace  was  broken,  and  once  more  the  raiders  were  abroad, 
carrying  terror  and  loss  to  all  the  surrounding  country. 
"So  great  was  the  folly  of  the  Tribune,"  his  primitive 
biographer  resumes,  losing  patience,  that  instead  of  follow- 
ing the  rebels  at  once  to  their  lair,  he  gave  them  time  to 
fortify  Marino  and  set  everything  in  order  for  defence,  so 
that  it  proved  a  hard  task  when  at  last  he  bestirred  him- 
self and  went  against  the  stronghold  with  an  army  of  unu 
sual  strength,  chiefly  raised  among  the  irritated  Romans 
themselves,  with  which  he  spoiled  all  the  surrounding  coun- 
try, took  a  smaller  fortress  belonging  to  the  Orsini,  and  so 
alarmed  them  that  they  offered  to  surrender  on  condition 
of  having  their  safety  secured.  Cola  would  make  no  con- 
ditions, but  he  did  not  succeed  in  taking  Marino,  being 


452  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

urgently  called  back  to  Rome  to  meet  the  Legate  of  the 
Pope,  who  had  been  sent  to  deal  with  him  with  the  severest 
threats  and  reprimands.  The  Tribune  upon  this  returned 
to  the  city,  raising  the  siege  of  Marino ;  and  instantly  on  his 
arrival  gave  orders  for  the  destruction  of  the  palace  of  the 
Orsini,  near  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo.  He  then  went  on  to 
St.  Peter's,  where  with  his  usual  love  of  costume,  and  in 
the  strange  vanity  which  more  and  more  took  possession  of 
him,  he  took  from  the  treasury  of  the  Chief  of  the  Apos- 
tles the  dalmatic  usually  worn  by  the  Emperors  during  the 
ceremonies  of  their  coronation,  a  garment  of  great  price, 
"  all  embroidered,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  with  small  pearls." 
This  he  put  on  over  his  armour,  and  so  equipped,  and  with 
the  silver  crown  on  his  head  which  was  his  distinction  as 
Tribune,  and  the  glittering  steel  sceptre  in  his  hand,  went 
to  the  Papal  palace,  where  the  Legate  awaited  him.  "  Ter- 
rible and  fantastic  was  his  appearance,"  says  his  biographer ; 
and  he  was  in  no  mood  to  receive  the  Legate  as  so  high  a 
functionary  expected.  "  You  have  come  to  see  us  —  what 
is  your  pleasure  ?  "  he  said.  The  Legate  replied :  "  I  have 
much  to  say  to  you  from  the  Pope."  When  the  Tribune 
heard  these  words,  he  spoke  out  loudly  in  a  high  voice, 
"What  have  you  to  say?"  but  when  the  Legate  heard 
this  rampant  reply,  he  stood  astonished  and  was  silent; 
then  the  Tribune  turned  his  back  upon  him. 

Rampagnosa  indeed  was  his  air  and  manner,  touched  with 
that  madness  which  the  gods  send  to  those  whom  they  would 
destroy ;  and  fantastico  the  appearance  of  the  leader,  unac- 
customed to  arms,  with  the  Emperor's  splendid  mantle  over 
the  dust  of  the  road,  and  the  pacific  simplicity  of  the  little 
civic  crown  over  his  steel  cap.  Probably  the  stately  Car- 
dinal-Legate, accustomed  to  princes  and  statesmen,  thought 
the  Tribune  mad ;  he  must  have  been  partially  so  at  least, 
in  the  excitement  of  his  first  campaign,  and  the  rising  tide 
of  his  self-confidence,  and  the  hurry  and  commotion  of  fate. 


in.]  THE  BUONO   STATO.  453 

In  the  meantime,  however,  Marino  was  not  taken",  and 
another  fire  of  rebellion  had  broken  out  among  the  Co- 
lonnas,  who  were  now  known  to  be  making  great  prepara- 
tions for  a  descent  upon  Eome.  The  Legate  had  retired 
to  Monte  Fiascone,  whence  he  opened  a  correspondence 
with  both  divisions  of  these  rebel  nobles;  and  a  formid- 
able party  was  thus  organised,  from  one  point  to  another, 
against  Eome:  while  the  city  itself  began  to  send  forth 
secret  messengers  on  all  sides,  the  populace  changing  its 
mind  as  usual,  while  the  wealthy  citizens  were  alarmed  by 
their  isolation,  or  offended  by  the  arrogance  of  their  chief. 
Cola,  too,  by  this  time  had  begun,  it  would  seem,  to  feel  in 
his  sensitive  person  the  reaction  of  so  much  excitement  and 
exaltation,  and  was  for  a  short  time  ill  and  miserable,  feel- 
ing the  horror  of  the  gathering  tempest  which  began  to  rise 
round  him  on  every  side.  But  he  was  reinvigorated  by  vari- 
ous successes  in  Eome  itself  and  by  the  still  greater  encour- 
agement given  by  the  arrival  of  the  first  rebel,  the  Lord  of 
Viterbo,  Giovanni  di  Vico,  who  came  in  the  guise  of  friend- 
ship and  with  offers  of  aid,  but  at  the  same  time  with  airs 
of  importance  and  pretension  which  Cola  did  not  approve. 
He  was  promptly  secured  by  the  usual  but  too  easy  method 
of  an  invitation  to  a  banquet,  a  snare  into  which  the  Eoman 
nobles  seem  to  have  fallen  with  much  readiness,  and  was 
imprisoned.  Then  Cola,  fully  restored  to  himself,  prepared 
to  meet  his  foes.  It  was  winter  weather,  a  dark  and  cold 
November,  when  the  rumour  rose  that  the  Colonna  were 
approaching  Eome.  Cola  called  together  his  army,  which 
had  been  increased  by  some  bands  of  allies  from  neigh- 
bouring cities,  and  was  headed  by  several  Orsini  of  another 
branch  of  the  house.  He  had  already  encouraged  the  people 
by  public  addresses,  in  which  he  related  the  appearance  to 
him  first  of  St.  Martin,  who  told  him  to  have  no  fear,  and 
secondly  of  St.  Boniface,  who  declared  himself  the  enemy 
of  the  Colonna,  who  wronged  the  Church  of  God.  Such 


454  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

visions  show  something  of  the  disturbed  condition  of  the 
Tribune's  mind  vainly  trying  to  strengthen  himself  in  a 
confidence  which  he  did  not  feel.  On  the  twentieth  of 
November,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  the  great  bell  rang, 
and  the  trumpets  sounded  for  the  approach  of  the  enemy : 
and  with  his  forces  divided  into  three  bands,  one  under 
his  own  command,  the  others  led  by  Cola  and  Giordano 
Orsini,  he  set  forth  to  meet  the  rebels  who  by  the  gate  of 
St.  Lorenzo  were  drawing  near  to  Koine. 

The  enemy  had  no  great  mind  for  the  battle.  They  had 
marched  all  night  through  the  bitter  rain  and  cold.  Old 
Stefano  had  been  attacked  by  fever  and  was  trembling  like 
a  leaf.  Agapito,  his  nephew,  had  had  a  bad  dream  in  which 
he  saw  his  wife  a  widow,  weeping  and  tearing  her  hair. 
They  arrived  before  the  gate  in  indifferent  heart  and  with 
divided  counsels,  though  there  had  been  information  sent 
them  of  a  conspiracy  within,  and  that  the  gate  would  be 
opened  to  them  without  any  struggle.  Stefano  Colonna  the 
younger,  who  was  general  of  the  host,  then  rode  up  alone 
and  demanded  entrance.  "  I  am  a  citizen  of  Borne.  I  wish 
to  return  to  my  house.  I  come  in  the  name  of  the  Buono 
Stato,"  he  said.  The  Captain  of  the  Gate  replied  with  great 
simplicity.  It  is  evident  that  Stefano  had  called  some  one 
by  name,  expecting  admittance.  "  The  guards  to  whom  you 
call  are  not  here.  The  guard  has  been  changed.  I  have 
newly  come  with  my  men.  You  cannot  by  any  means  come 
in.  The  gate  is  locked.  Do  you  not  know  in  what  anger 
the  people  are  against  you  for  having  disturbed  the  Buono 
Stato  ?  Do  not  you  hear  the  great  bell  ?  I  pray  you  for 
God's  sake  go  away.  I  wish  you  no  harm.  To  show  you 
that  you  cannot  enter  here,  I  throw  out  the  key."  The  key, 
which  was  useless  on  the  outer  side  of  the  gate,  fell  into  a 
pool  made  by  the  rain  :  but  the  noise  of  its  fall  startled  the 
already  troubled  nerves  of  the  leaders,  and  they  held  hasty 
counsel  what  to  do.  "  They  deliberated  if  they  could  retire 


m.]  THE  BUONO  STATO.  455 

with  honour,"  says  the  chronicler.  It  is  most  curious  to 
hear  this  parleying,  and  the  murmur  of  the  army,  uneasy 
outside,  not  knowing  what  further  step  to  take,  in  the  mis- 
erable November  dawn,  after  their  night  march.  They  had 
expected  to  be  admitted  by  treachery,  and  evidently  had 
not  taken  this  contretemps  into  their  calculations.  "  They 
resolved  to  retire  with  honour,"  says  Papencordt :  and  for 
this  purpose  troop  by  troop  advanced  to  the  gate,  and  then 
turned  to  retreat :  perhaps  in  obedience  to  some  punctilio  of 
ancient  warfare.  The  third  battalion  contained  the  pride  of 
the  army  (li  pruodi,  e  le  bene  a  cavallo,  e  tutta  la  fortezza), 
young  Janni  Colonna,  at  its  head.  One  portion  of  Cola's 
army  had  by  this  time  reached  the  same  spot  inside,  and 
were  eager  for  a  sortie,  but  could  not  open  the  gate  in  the 
usual  manner,  the  key  being  lost ;  they  therefore  broke  open 
one  portion  of  it  with  great  clamour  and  noise.  The  right 
side  opened,  the  left  remained  closed. 

"  Janni  Colonna  approached  the  gate,  hearing  the  noise  within,  and 
considering  that  there  had  been  no  order  to  open  it,  he  thought  that 
his  friends  must  have  made  that  noise,  and  that  they  had  broken  the 
gate  by  force.  Thus  considering,  Janni  Colonna  quickly  crossed  the 
threshold  with  his  lance  in  rest,  spurring  his  courser,  riding  boldly 
without  precaution.  He  entered  the  gate  of  the  city.  Deh  !  how  ter- 
rified were  the  people  !  Before  him  all  the  cavalry  in  Rome  turned  to 
fly.  Likewise  the  Popolo  retreated  flying,  for  the  space  of  half  a  turn. 
But  not  for  this  did  his  friends  follow  Janni,  so  that  he  remained  alone 
there,  as  if  he  had  been  called  to  judgment.  Then  the  Romans  took 
courage,  perceiving  that  he  was  alone :  the  greater  was  his  misfortune. 
His  horse  caught  its  foot  in  an  open  cellar  (grotto)  which  was  by  the  left 
side  of  the  gate,  and  threw  him,  trampling  upon  him.  Janni  perceiving 
his  misfortune}  called  out  to  the  people  for  quarter,  adjuring  them  for 
God's  sake  not  to  strip  him  of  his  armour.  How  can  it  be  said  ?  He  was 
stripped  and  struck  by  three  blows  and  died.  Fonneruglio  de  Trejo  was 
the  first  to  strike.  He  (Janni)  was  a  young  man  of  a  good  disposition. 
His  fame  was  spread  through  every  land.  He  lay  there  naked,  wounded 
and  dead,  in  a  heap  against  the  wall  of  the  city  within  the  gate,  his  hair 
all  plastered  with  mud,  scarcely  to  be  recognised.  Then  was  seen  a  great 
marvel.  The  pestilential  and  disturbed  weather  began  to  clear,  the  sun 
shone  out,  the  sky  from  being  dark  and  cloudy  became  serene  and  gay." 

This,  however,  was  but  the  first  chapter  of  this  dreadful 
tragedy.  And  still  greater  misery  was  to  come. 


456  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

"  Stefano  della  Colonna,  among  the  multitude  outside  in  front  of 
the  gate,  demanded  anxiously  where  was  his  son  Janni,  and  was 
answered :  *  We  know  not  what  he  has  done  or  where  he  has  gone.' 
Then  Stefano  began  to  suspect  that  he  had  gone  in  at  the  gate.  He 
therefore  spurred  his  horse  and  went  on  alone,  and  saw  his  son  lying 
on  the  ground  surrounded  by  many  people,  between  the  cellar  and  the 
pool  of  water.  Seeing  that,  Stefano  fearing  for  himself,  turned  back ; 
he  went  out  from  the  gate  and  his  good  sense  abandoned  him.  He 
was  confounded  ;  the  loss  of  his  son  overcame  him.  He  said  not  a 
word,  but  turned  back  and  again  entered  the  gate,  if  by  any  means  he 
might  save  his  son.  When  he  drew  near  he  saw  that  his  son  was 
dead.  The  question  now  was  to  save  his  own  life,  and  he  turned  back 
again  sadly.  As  he  went  out  of  the  gate,  and  was  passing  under  the 
Tower,  a  great  piece  of  stone  struck  him  on  the  shoulder  and  his  horse 
on  the  croup.  Then  followed  lances,  thrown  from  every  side.  The 
wounded  horse  threw  out  its  heels,  and  the  rider  unable  to  keep  his 
seat  fell  to  the  ground,  when  the  Popolo  rushed  upon  him  in  front  of 
the  gate,  in  that  place  where  the  image  stands,  in  the  middle  of  the 
road.  There  he  lay  naked  in  sight  of  the  people  and  of  every  one  who 
passed  by.  He  had  lost  one  foot  and  was  wounded  in  many  places, 
one  terrible  blow  having  struck  him  between  the  nose  and  the  eyes. 
Janni  was  wounded  only  in  the  breast  and  in  one  of  his  feet.  Then 
the  people  flung  themselves  forth  from  the  gate  furiously  without  order 
or  leader,  seeking  merely  whom  to  kill.  They  met  the  young  Cava- 
liers, foremost  of  whom  was  Pietro  of  Agapito  di  Colonna  who  had 
been  Prsefect  of  Marseilles,  and  a  priest.  He  had  never  used  arms  till 
that  day.  He  fell  from  his  horse  and  could  not  recover  himself,  the 
ground  being  so  slippery,  but  fled  into  a  vineyard  close  by.  Bald  he 
was,  and  old,  praying  for  God's  sake  to  be  forgiven.  But  vain  was 
his  prayer.  First  his  money  was  taken,  then  his  arms,  then  his  life. 
He  lay  in  that  vineyard  naked,  dead,  bald,  fat — not  like  a  man  of  war. 
Near  him  lay  another  baron,  Pandolfo  of  the  lords  Of  Belvedere.  In  a 
small  space  lay  twelve  of  them  ;  prostrate  they  lay.  All  the  rest  of 
the  army,  horsemen  as  well  as  footmen,  flung  their  arms  from  them 
here  and  there,  and  without  order,  in  great  terror,  turned  their  backs  : 
and  there  was  not  one  who  struck  a  blow." 


Thus  ended  the  first  attack  upon  the  Tribune  —  horribly, 
vilely,  with  panic  on  both  sides,  and  the  rage  of  wild  beasts 
among  the  victorious  people,  not  one  on  either  side,  except 
those  two  murdered  Colonnas,  bearing  himself  like  a  man. 
The  record  of  the  struggle,  so  intense  in  its  brevity,  so  brutal 
and  terrible,  with  its  background  of  leaden  skies  and  falling 
rain,  and  the  muddy  earth  upon  which  both  horses  and  men 
slipped  and  fell,  is  placed  before  us  like  a  picture :  and  the 
sudden  clearing  of  the  weather,  the  sun  breaking  out  sud- 


in.]  THE  BUONO  STATO.  457 

denly  upon  those  white  prostrate  figures,  white  and  red  with 
horrible  wounds.  There  could  not  be  a  more  appalling  scene 
—  amid  all  the  records  of  intestine  warfare  one  of  the  most 
squalid,  unredeemed  even  by  any  feat  of  arms;  for  poor 
young  Janni  walked  into  the  snare  unconscious,  and  a  blind 
chance,  horrible  and  unpremeditated,  seemed  to  reign  over 
all  —  all  but  the  father,  heart-broken,  retiring  by  instinct 
in  the  first  discovery  of  danger,  then  turning  back  to  save, 
if  it  were  possible,  his  dying  boy,  who  had  been  so  brutally 
struck  down  and  cut  to  pieces.  The  old  father  of  all,  the 
great  Stefano,  too  old  for  war,  and  trembling  with  fever, 
was  borne  along  in  the  crowd  of  the  flying,  to  hide  his 
bereaved  head  in  his  old  fortress  and  sternly  lament  his 
children  lost. 

Cola,  the  chronicle  says,  shared  the  consternation  of  the 
people  when  young  Janni's  noble  figure  appeared  in  the 
opening  of  the  gate.  The  Tribune's  banner  was  overturned 
in  the  backward  rush  of  the  people  before  that  solitary 
invader :  and  he  himself,  raising  his  eyes  to  heaven,  cried 
out  no  other  word  than  this  :  "  Ah,  God,  hast  thou  betrayed 
me  ?  "  But  when  the  sudden  rush  of  murder  and  pursuit 
was  over  he  recovered  all  his  dramatic  instincts  along  with 
his  courage.  The  silver  trumpets  were  sounded,  a  wreath 
of  olive  was  placed  upon  his  head  above  the  silver  crown, 
he  waved  his  steel  wand  in  the  now  brilliant  sunshine,  and 
marched  into  Rome,  triumphant  —  as  indeed  he  had  good 
reason  to  be  —  to  the  Church  of  the  Ara  Cceli,  where  he 
deposited  the  olive  crown  and  the  steel  wand  before  the 
altar  of  the  Virgin.  "  After  this,'7  says  the  indignant  chron- 
icler, "  he  never  carried  sceptre  again,  nor  wore  crown,  nor 
had  a  banner  borne  over  his  head."  Once  more  he  addressed 
the  people  from  the  Parlatorio,  with  the  intonation  of  vic- 
tory in  every  word.  Drawing  his  sword,  he  wiped  it  with 
his  robe,  and  said :  "  I  have  cut  off  with  this  such  a  head 
as  neither  the  Pope  nor  the  Emperor  could  touch." 


458  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

Meanwhile  the  three  dead  Colonnas  had  been  carried  into 
Eome  to  the  chapel  of  their  house  in  the  Ara  Coeli.  "  The 
Contesse  (the  relations,  wives  and  sisters)  came,  attended  by 
many  women  tearing  their  hair,  to  wail  (ululare)  over  the 
dead,"  but  Cola  had  them  driven  away  and  forbade  any 
funeral  honours.  "  If  they  trouble  me  any  more  about  these 
accursed  corpses,"  he  said,  "  I  will  have  them  thrown  into  a 
ditch.  They  were  perjurers  —  they  were  not  worthy  to  be 
buried."  The  three  dead  knights  were  carried  secretly  by 
night  to  the  Church  of  San  Silvestro,  and  buried  by  the  monks 
senza  ululato,  without  any  lament  made  over  them.  Thus 
ended  the  noble  Colonna,  the  hopes  of  the  house  —  and  with 
them,  though  he  knew  it  not,  the  extravagant  hopes  and 
miraculous  good  fortune  of  Cola  di  Rienzi,  which  began  to 
fall  from  that  day. 

We  have  dwelt  upon  the  details  of  this  history,  because 
there  is  scarcely  any  other  which  gives  so  clear  a  vision  of 
the  streets  and  palaces,  the  rushing  of  the  Popolo,  the 
uncertain  counsels  of  the  nobles,  the  mingled  temerity  and 
panic  which  prevailed  among  all  on  both  sides.  The  con- 
fusion is  extraordinary  ;  the  ignorant  crowd  with  its  enthu- 
siast leader  scarcely  less  ignorant  of  men  and  the  just  course 
of  human  affairs,  who  defied  with  a  light  heart  the  greatest 
powers  in  Christendom,  and  retreated  before  the  terrific 
vision  of  one  young  warrior  in  the  gate :  the  nobles  with 
their  army,  which  sought  only  how  to  get  away  again  with- 
out disgrace  when  they  found  themselves  in  front  of  a 
defended  gate,  and  fled  before  a  rabble  sortie,  of  men  as 
much  frightened  as  themselves,  and  brave  only  when  pur- 
suing another  demoralised  troop.  Whether  we  look  to  one 
side  or  the  other,  the  effect  is  equally  vivid.  The  reve- 
lation, at  first  so  romantic  and  splendid,  if  always  fantastic 
and  theatrical,  falls  now  into  a  squalid  horror  and  mad  brag, 
and  cowardice,  and  fury,  in  which  the  spectacle  of  the  Trib- 
une, wiping  the  sword  guiltless  of  blood  upon  his  mantle, 


III.] 


THE  BUONO   STATO. 


459 


reaches  perhaps  the  highest  point  of  tragic  ridicule :  while 
all  the  chivalry  of  Rome  galloping  along  the  muddy  roads 
to  their  strongholds,  flying  before  a  civic  mob,  is  its  lowest 
point  of  humiliating  misery.  It  seems  almost  impossible  to 
believe  that  the  best  blood  and  highest  names  of  Italy,  as 
well  as  on  the  other  side  its  most  visionary  aspirations, 
should  come  to  such  degrading  confusion  and  downfall. 


PORTA  DEL  POPOLO  (FLAMINIAN  GATE). 


THEATRE   OF   MARCELLUS. 


CHAPTER   IV. 


DECLINE    AND    FALL. 

AFTER  so  strange  and  so  complete  a  victory  over  one 
party,  had  the  Tribune  pushed  his  advantage,  and 
gone  against  the  other  with  all  the  prestige  of  his  triumph, 
he  would  in  all  probability  have  ended  the  resistance  of  the 
nobles  altogether.  But  he  did  not  do  this.  He  had  no  de- 
sire for  any  more  fighting.  It  is  supposed,  with  insufficient 
reason  we  think,  that  personally  he  was  a  coward.  What  is 
more  likely  is  that  so  sensitive  and  nervous  a  man  (to  use 
the  jargon  of  our  own  times)  must  have  suffered,  as  any  fine 
temperament  would  have  done,  from  that  scene  at  the  gate 
of  San  Lorenzo,  and  poor  young  Janni  Colonna  lying  in  his 
blood ;  and  that  when  he  declared  "  he  would  draw  his  sword 

460 


CH.  iv.]  DECLINE   AND   FALL.  461 

no  more,"  he  did  so  with,  a  sincere  disgust  for  all  such  brutal 
methods.  His  own  ways  of  convincing  people  were  by  argu- 
ment and  elocution,  and  pictures  on  the  walls,  which,  if  they 
did  not  convince,  did  nobody  any  harm.  The  next  scene, 
however,  which  he  prepared  for  his  audience  does  not  look 
much  like  the  horror  for  which  we  have  given  him  credit. 
He  had  informed  his  followers  before  he  first  set  out  against 
the  nobles  that  he  was  taking  his  son  with  him  —  something 
in  the  tone  with  which  the  presence  of  a  Prince  Imperial 
might  be  proclaimed  to  an  army ;  and  we  now  find  the  young 
Lorenzo  placed  still  more  in  the  foreground.  The  day  after 
that  dreadful  victory  Cola  called  together  the  militia  of  the 
city  by  the  most  touching  argument.  "  Come  with  me,"  he 
said,  "and  afterwards  you  shall  have  your  pay."  They 
turned  out  accordingly  to  accompany  him,  wondering,  but 
not  knowing  what  he  had  in  his  mind. 

"The  trumpets  sounded  at  the  place  where  the  fight  (sconfitto)  had 
taken  place.  No  one  knew  what  was  to  be  done  there.  He  went  with 
his  son  to  the  very  spot  where  Stefano  Colonna  had  died.  There  was 
still  there  a  little  pool  of  water.  Cola  made  his  son  dismount  and 
threw  over  him  the  water  which  was  still  tinged  with  the  blood  of 
Stefano,  and  said  to  him  :  '  Be  thou  a  Knight  of  Victory. '  All  around 
wondered  and  were  stupefied.  Then  he  gave  orders  that  all  the  com- 
manders should  strike  his  son  on  the  shoulder  with  their  swords. 
This  done  he  returned  to  the  Capitol,  and  said  :  '  Go  your  ways.  We 
have  done  a  common  work.  All  our  sires  were  Komans,  the  country 
expects  that  we  should  fight  for  her.'  When  this  was  said  the  minds 
of  the  people  were  much  exercised,  and  some  would  never  bear  arms 
again.  Then  the  Tribune  began  to  be  greatly  hated,  and  people 
began  to  talk  among  themselves  of  his  arrogance  which  was  not 
small." 

This  grotesque  and  horrible  ceremony  seems  to  have  done 
Cola  more  harm  than  all  that  had  gone  before.  The  leader 
of  a  revolution  should  have  no  sons.  The  excellent  instinct 
of  providing  for  his  family  after  him,  and  making  himself 
a  stepping  stone  for  his  children,  though  proceeding  from 
"  what  is  best  within  the  soul,"  has  spoiled  many  a  history. 
Cola  di  E-ienzi  was  a  most  conspicuous  and  might  have  been 


462  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

a  great  man :  but  Rienzo  di  Cola,  which,  would  have  been  his 
son's  natural  name,  was  nobody,  and  is  never  heard  of  after 
this  terrible  baptism  of  blood,  so  abhorrent  to  every  natural 
and  generous  impulse.  Did  the  gazers  in  the  streets  see  the 
specks  of  red  on  young  Lorenzo's  dress  as  he  rode  along 
through  the  city  from  the  Tiburtine  gate,  and  through  the 
Forum  to  the  Capitol,  where  all  the  train  was  dismissed  so 
summarily  ?  As  the  Cavallerotti,  the  better  part  of  the 
gathering,  turned  their  horses  and  rode  away  offended,  no 
doubt  the  news  ran  through  quarter  after  quarter  with  them. 
The  blood  of  Stefanello,  the  heir  of  great  Colonna !  And 
thoughts  of  the  old  man  desolate,  and  of  young  Janni  so 
brave  and  gay,  would  come  into  many  a  mind.  They  might 
be  tyrants,  but  they  were  familiar  Eoman  faces,  known  to 
all,  and  with  some  reason  to  be  proud,  if  proud  they  were  ; 
not  like  this  upstart,  who  called  honest  men  away  from  their 
own  concerns  to  do  honour  to  his  low-born  son,  and  sent  them 
packing  about  their  business  afterwards  without  so  much  as 
a  dinner  to  celebrate  the  new  knight ! 

This  was  all  in  November,  the  20th  and  21st :  and  it  was 
on  the  20th  of  May  that  Cola  had  received  his  election  upon 
the  Capitol  and  been  proclaimed  master  of  the  destinies  of 
the  universe,  by  inference,  as  master  of  Rome.  Six  months, 
110  more,  crammed  full  of  gorgeous  pageants  and  exciting 
events.  Then,  notwithstanding  the  extraordinary  character 
of  his  revolution,  he  had  been  believed  in,  and  encouraged 
by  all  around.  He  had  received  the  sanction  of  the  Pope, 
the  friendly  congratulations  of  the  great  Italian  towns,  and 
above  all  the  applause,  enthusiastic  and  overflowing,  of 
Petrarch  the  greatest  of  living  poets.  By  degrees  all  these 
sympathies  and  applauses  had  fallen  from  him.  Florence 
and  the  other  great  cities  had  withdrawn  their  friendship, 
the  Pope  had  cancelled  his  commission,  the  Pope's  Vicar 
had  left  the  Tribune's  side.  The  more  his  vanity  and  self- 
admiration  grew,  the  more  his  friends  had  fallen  from  him. 


iv.]  DECLINE   AND  FALL.  465 

That  very  day  —  the  day  after  the  defeat  of  the  Colonna, 
before  the  news  could  have  reached  any  one  at  a  distance, 
Petrarch  on  his  way  to  Italy,  partly  brought  back  thither 
by  anxiety  about  his  friend,  received  from  another  friend  a 
copy  of  one  of  the  arrogant  and  extraordinary  letters  which 
Cola  was  sending  about  the  world,  and  read  and  re-read  it 
and  was  stupefied.  "  What  answer  can  be  made  to  it  ?  I 
know  not,"  he  cries.  "  I  see  that  fate  pursues  the  country, 
and  on  whatever  side  I  turn,  I  find  subjects  of  grief  and 
trouble.  If  Eome  is  ruined  what  hope  remains  for  Italy  ? 
and  if  Italy  is  degraded  what  will  become  of  me  ?  What 
can  I  offer  but  tears  ? ??  A  few  days  later,  arrived  at  Genoa, 
the  poet  wrote  to  Bienzi  himself  in  reproof  and  sorrow  : 

"  Often,  I  confess  it,  I  have  had  occasion  upon  thy  account  to 
repeat  with  immense  joy  what  Cicero  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Scipio 
Af ricanus  :  — '  What  is  this  great  and  delightful  sound  that  comes  to 
my  ears  ?  '  And  certainly  nothing  could  be  better  applied  to  the 
splendour  of  thy  name  and  to  the  frequent  and  joyful  account  of  thy 
doings  :  and  it  was  indeed  good  to  my  heart  to  speak  to  thee  in  that 
exhortation,  full  of  thy  praise  and  of  encouragements  to  continue,  which 
I  sent  thee.  Deli !  do  nothing,  I  conjure  thee,  to  make  me  now  ask, 
whence  is  this  great  and  fatal  rumour  which  strikes  my  ear  so  pain- 
fully ?  Take  care,  I  beseech  thee,  not  thyself  to  soil  thine  own  splendid 
fame.  No  man  in  the  world  except  thyself  can  shake  the  foundations 
of  the  edifice  thou  hast  constructed  ;  but  that  which  thou  hast  founded 
thou  canst  ruin  :  for  to  destroy  his  own  proper  work  no  man  is  so  able 
as  the  architect.  You  know  the  road  by  which  you  have  risen  to 
glory :  if  you  turn  back  you  shall  soon  find  yourself  in  the  lowest 
place  ;  and  going  down  is  naturally  the  quicker.  ...  I  was  hasten- 
ing to  you  and  with  all  my  heart :  but  I  turn  upon  the  way.  Other 
than  what  you  were,  I  would  not  see  you.  Adieu,  Eome,  to  thee  also 
adieu,  if  that  is  true  which  I  have  heard.  Rather  than  come  to  thee  I 
would  go  to  the  Indies,  to  the  end  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Oh,  how  ill  the 
beginning  agrees  with  the  end !  Oh,  miserable  ears  of  mine  that, 
accustomed  to  the  sound  of  glory,  do  not  know  how  to  bear  such  an- 
nouncements of  shame !  But  may  not  these  be  lies  and  my  words 
false  ?  Oh  that  it  might  be  so  !  How  glad  should  I  be  to  confess  my 
error  !  .  .  .  If  thou  art  indeed  so  little  careful  of  thy  fame,  think  at 
least  of  mine.  You  well  know  by  what  tremendous  tempest  I  am 
threatened,  how  many  are  the  crowd  of  faultfinders  ready  to  ruin  me. 
While  there  is  still  time  put  your  mind  to  it,  be  vigilant,  look  well  to 
what  you  do,  guide  yourself  continually  by  good  counsel,  consider  with 
yourself,  not  deceiving  yourself,  what  you  are,  what  you  were,  from 
whence  you  have  come,  and  to  what  point,  without  detriment  to  the 
2  H 


466  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

public  weal,  you  can  attain :  how  to  attire  yourself,  what  name  to 
assume,  what  hopes  to  awaken,  and  of  what  doctrine  to  make  open 
confession  ;  understanding  always  that  not  Lord,  but  solely  Minister, 
you  are  of  the  Republic." 

The  share  which  Petrarch  thus  takes  to  himself  in  Cola's 
fortunes  may  seem  exaggerated ;  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Colonna  were  his  chief  patrons  and  friends,  that  it 
was  under  their  protecting  shadow  that  he  had  risen  to 
fame,  and  that  his  warm  friendship  for  Bienzi  had  already 
deeply  affected  the  terms  of  his  relationship  with  them. 
That  relationship  had  come  to  a  positive  breach  so  far  as 
his  most  powerful  protector,  the  Cardinal  Giovanni,  was 
concerned,  a  breach  of  feeling  on  one  side  as  well  as  of  pro- 
tection on  the  other.  His  letter  to  the  Cardinal  after  this 
catastrophe,  condoling  with  him  upon  the  death  of  his 
brothers,  is  one  of  the  coldest  of  compositions,  very  unlike 
the  warm  and  eager  affection  of  old,  and  consisting  chiefly 
of  elaborate  apologies  for  not  having  written.  The  poet 
had  completely  committed  himself  in  respect  to  the  Trib- 
une ;  he  had  hailed  his  advent  in  the  most  enthusiastic  terms, 
he  had  proclaimed  him  the  hope  of  Italy,  he  had  staked 
his  own  reputation  upon  his  friend's  disinterestedness  and 
patriotism ;  therefore  this  downfall  with  all  its  humiliating 
circumstances,  the  vanities  and  self-intoxication  which  had 
brought  it  about,  were  intolerable  to  Petrarch :  his  own 
credit  as  well  as  Cola's  was  concerned.  He  had  been  so 
rash  as  to  answer  for  the  Tribune  in  all  quarters,  to  pledge 
his  own  judgment,  his  power  of  understanding  men,  almost 
his  honour,  on  Cola's  behalf ;  and  to  be  proved  so  wrong,  so 
little  capable  of  estimating  justly  the  man  whom  he  believed 
himself  to  know  so  well,  was  bitterness  unspeakable  to  him. 

The  interest  of  his  tragic  disappointment  and  sorrow  is 
at  the  same  time  enhanced  by  the  fact,  that  the  other  party 
to  this  dreadful  quarrel  had  been  the  constant  objects  of 
the  poet's  eulogies  and  enthusiasm.  It  is  to  Petrarch  that 


iv.]  DECLINE  AND  FALL.  467 

we  owe  most  of  our  knowledge  of  the  Colonna  family  at 
this  remarkable  period  of  a  long  history  which  is  filled 
with  the  oft-repeated  incidents  of  an  endless  struggle  for 
power,  either  with  the  rebellious  B-omans  themselves,  or 
with  the  other  little  less  great  family  of  the  Orsini  who, 
unfortunately  for  themselves,  had  no  Petrarch  to  bring 
them  fully  into  the  light  of  day.  The  many  allusions 
in  Petrarch's  letters,  his  reminiscences  of  the  ample  and 
gracious  household,  all  so  friendly,  and  caressing,  all  of 
one  mind  as  to  his  own  poetical  qualities,  and  anxious  to 
heap  honours  upon  him,  light  up  for  us  the  face  of  the 
much  complicated  story,  and  give  interest  to  many  an 
elaborate  poetical  or  philosophical  disquisition.  Especially 
the  figure  of  the  father,  the  old  Stefano  with  his  seven  sons 
and  the  innumerable  tribe  of  nephews  and  cousins,  not  to 
say  grandsons,  still  more  cherished,  who  surrounded  him  — 
rises  clear,  magnanimous,  out  of  the  disturbed  and  stormy 
landscape.  His  brief  appearances  in  the  chronicle  which 
we  have  quoted,  with  a  keen  brief  speech  here  and  there, 
imperative,  in  strong  accents  of  common  sense  as  well  as 
of  power,  add  a  touch  of  energetic  life  to  the  many  anec- 
dotes and  descriptions  of  a  more  elaborate  kind.  And  the 
poet  would  seem  never  to  have  failed  in  his  admiration  for 
the  old  Magnanimo.  At  an  earlier  period  he  had  described 
in  several  letters  to  the  son  Giovanni,  the  Cardinal,  the 
reception  given  to  him  at  Rome,  and  conversations,  some 
of  them  very  remarkable.  One  scene  above  all,  of  which 
Petrarch  reminds  Stefano  himself  in  his  bereavement,  gives 
us  a  most  touching  picture  of  the  noble  old  man. 

"  One  day  at  sunset  you  and  I  alone  were  walking  by  that  spacious 
way  which  leads  from  your  house  to  the  Capitol,  when  we  paused  at 
that  point  where  it  is  crossed  by  the  other  road  by  which  on  one  hand 
you  ascend  to  the  Arch  of  Camillus,  and  on  the  other  go  down  to  the 
Tiber :  we  paused  there  without  interruption  from  any  and  talked 
together  of  the  condition  of  your  house  and  family,  which,  often  as- 
sailed by  the  enmity  of  strangers,  was  at  that  time  moved  by  grievous 


468  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP 

internal  commotions  :  —  when  the  discourse  fell  upon  one  of  your  sons 
with  whom,  more  by  the  work  of  scandal-mongers  than  by  paternal 
resentment,  you  were  angry,  and  by  your  goodness  it  was  given  to  me, 
what  many  others  had  not  been  able  to  obtain,  to  persuade  you  to 
receive  him  again  to  your  good  grace.  After  you  had  lamented  his 
faults  to  me,  changing  your  aspect  all  at  once  you  said  (I  remember 
not  only  the  substance  of  your  discourse  but  the  very  words).  '  This 
son  of  mine,  thy  friend,  whom,  thanks  to  thee,  I  will  now  receive  again 
with  paternal  affection,  has  vomited  forth  words  concerning  my  old 
age,  of  which  it  is  best  to  be  silent ;  but  since  I  cannot  refuse  you,  let 
us  put  a  stone  over  the  past  and  let  a  full  amnesty,  as  people  say,  be 
conceded.  From  my  lips  I  promise  thee,  not  another  word  shall  be 
heard. 

"  '  One  thing  I  will  tell  you,  that  you  may  make  perpetual  remem- 
brance of  it.  It  is  made  a  reproach  to  my  old  age  that  I  am  mixed 
up  with  warlike  factions  more  than  is  becoming,  and  more  than  there 
is  any  occasion,  and  that  thus  I  will  leave  to  my  sons  an  inheritance 
of  peril  and  hate.  But  as  God  is  true,  I  desire  you  to  believe  that  for 
love  of  peace  alone  I  allow  myself  to  be  drawn  into  war.  Whether  it 
be  the  effect  of  my  extreme  old  age  which  chills  and  enfeebles  the 
spirit  in  this  already  stony  bosom,  or  whether  it  proceeds  from  my 
long  observation  of  human  affairs,  it  is  certain  that  more  than  others 
I  am  greedy  of  repose  and  peace.  But  fixed  and  immovable  as  is  my 
resolution  never  to  shrink  from  trouble  though  I  may  prefer  a  settled 
and  tranquil  life,  I  find  it  better,  since  fate  compels  me,  to  go  down  to 
the  sepulchre  fighting,  than  to  submit,  old  as  I  am,  to  servitude.  And 
for  what  you  say  of  my  heirs  I  have  but  one  thing  to  reply.  Listen 
well,  and  fix  my  words  in  your  mind.  God  grant  that  I  may  leave  my 
inheritance  to  my  sons.  But  all  in  opposition  to  my  desires  are  the 
decrees  of  fate  (the  words  were  said  with  tears)  :  contrary  to  the 
order  of  nature  it  is  I  who  shall  be  the  heir  of  all  my  sons.'  And  thus 
saying,  your  eyes  swollen  with  tears,  you  turned  away." 

At  the  corner  where  the  Corso  is  crossed  by  the  street 
which  borders  the  Forum  of  Trajan,  let  whoso  will  pause 
amid  the  bustle  of  modern  traffic  and  think  for  a  moment 
of  those  two  figures  standing  together  talking,  "without 
interruption  from  any  one/'  in  the  middle  of  that  open 
space,  while  the  long  level  rays  of  the  sunset  streamed  upon 
them  from  beyond  the  Flaminian  gate.  Was  there  some 
great  popular  meeting  at  the  Capitol  which  had  cleared  the 
streets,  the  hum  of  voices  rising  on  the  height,  but  all  quiet 
here  at  this  dangerous,  glorious  hour,  when  fever  is  abroad 
and  the  women  and  children  are  all  indoors?  "I  made 
light  of  it,  I  confess,"  says  Petrarch,  though  he  acknowl- 


iv.]  DECLINE   AND  FALL.  469 

edges  that  he  told  the  story  of  this  dreadful  presentiment 
to  the  Cardinal,  who,  sighing,  exclaimed,  "  Would  to  God 
that  my  father's  prediction  may  not  come  true ! "  But  old 
Stefano  with  his  weight  of  years  upon  him,  and  his  front 
like  Jove,  turned  away  sighing,  stroking  his  venerable 
beard,  unmoved  by  the  poet's  reassurances,  with  that  terri- 
ble conviction  in  his  heart.  They  were  all  young  and  he 
old:  daring,  careless  young  men,  laughing  at  that  same 
Cola  of  the  little  albergo,  the  son  of  the  wine-shop,  who  said 
he  was  to  be  an  emperor.  But  the  shadow  on  the  grand- 
sire's  heart  was  one  of  those  .which  events  cast  before  them. 
Young  Janni  was  to  go  among  the  first,  the  brave  boy  who 
ought  to  have  been  heir  of  all.  To  him,  too,  his  grand- 
father, the  great  Stefano,  the  head  of  the  full  house,  was  to 
be  heir. 

The  terrible  event  of  the  Porta  di  San  Lorenzo  shows  in 
still  darker  colours  when  we  look  at  it  closer.  Stefano,  the 
son  of  Stefano,  and  Janni  his  son,  are  the  two  most  con- 
spicuous names :  but  there  were  more.  Camillo,  figlio  natu- 
rale,  morto  il  20  November  1347,  aW  assalto  di  Porta  San 
Lorenzo;  Pietro,  figlio  naturale,  rimase  occiso  a  Porta  San 
Lorenzo.  Giovanni  of  Agapito,  Pietro  of  Agapito,  nephews 
of  old  Stefano,  morti  neW  assalto  di  Porta  San  Lorenzo. 
Seven  in  all  were  the  scions  of  Colonna  who  ended  their 
life  that  horrible  November  morning  in  the  mud  and  rain ; 
or  more  dreadful  still  under  the  morning  sun  which  broke 
out  so  suddenly,  showing  those  white  dreadful  forms  all 
stripped  and  abandoned,  upon  the  fatal  way.  It  was  little 
wonder  if  between  the  house  of  Colonna  and  the  upstart 
Cola  no  peace  should  ever  be  possible  after  a  lost  battle  so 
fatal  and  so  humiliating  to  the  race. 

Perhaps  after  the  first  moment  of  terrible  joy  and  relief 
to  find  himself  uninjured,  and  his  enemies  so  deeply  pun- 
ished, compunction  seized  the  sensitive  mind  of  Cola:  or 
perhaps  he  was  alarmed  by  the  displeasure  of  the  Pope,  his 


470  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

abandonment  by  all  his  friends,  and  the  solemn  adjuration 
of  Petrarch.  It  is  certain  that  after  this  he  dropped  many 
of  his  pretensions,  subdued  the  fantastic  arrogance  of  his 
titles  and  superscription,  gave  up  his  claim  to  elect  em- 
perors and  preside  over  the  fortunes  of  the  world,  and 
began  to  devote  himself  with  humility  to  the  government 
of  the  city  which  had  fallen  into  something  of  its  old  dis- 
orderliness  within  the  walls ;  while  outside  there  was  again, 
as  of  old,  no  security  at  all.  The  rebel  barons  had  resumed 
their  turbulent  sway,  the  robbers  reappeared  in  all  their  old 
coverts ;  and  once  again  every  road  to  Borne  was  as  unsafe 
as  that  on  which  the  traveller  of  old  fell  among  thieves. 
Cola,  Knight  and  Lieutenant  of  our  Lord  the  Pope,  now 
headed  his  proclamations,  instead  of  Nicolas,  severe  and 
clement.  His  crown  of  silver  and  sceptre  of  steel,  fantastic 
emblems,  were  hung  up  before  the  shrine  of  Our  Lady  in 
the  Ara  Cceli,  and  everything  about  him  was  toned  down 
into  gravity.  By  this  means  he  kept  up  a  semblance  of 
peace,  and  replaced  the  Buono  Stato  in  its  visionary  shrine. 
But  Cola  had  gone  too  far,  and  lost  the  confidence  of  the 
people  too  completely  to  rise  again.  His  very  humility 
would  no  doubt  be  against  him,  showing  the  weakness 
which  a  man  unsupported  on  any  side  should  perhaps  have 
been  bold  enough  to  defy,  hardihood  being  now  his  only 
chance  in  face  of  so  many  assailants.  Pope  Clement  thun- 
dered against  him  from  Avignon ;  the  nobles  lay  in  Pales- 
trina  and  Marino,  and  many  a  smaller  fortress  besides, 
irreconcilable,  watching  every  opportunity  of  assailing  him. 
The  country  was  once  more  devastated  all  round  Borne, 
provisions  short,  corn  dear,  and  funds  failing  as  well  as 
authority  and  respect.  And  Cola's  'heart  had  failed  him 
along  with  his  prosperity.  He  had  bad  dreams ;  he  him- 
self tells  the  story  of  this  moral  downfall  with  a  forlorn 
attempt  to  show  that  it  was  not,  after  all,  his  visible  ene- 
mies, or  the  power  of  men,  which  had  cast  him  down. 


iv.]  DECLINE   AND   FALL.  471 

"After  my  triumph  over  the  Colonna,"  he  writes,  "just  when  my 
dominion  seemed  strongest,  my  stoutness  of  heart  was  taken  from  me,  ' 
and  I  was  seized  by  visionary  terrors.  Night  after  night  awakened  by 
visions  and  dreams  I  cried  out, '  The  Capitol  is  falling,'  or  *  The  enemy 
comes  1 '  For  some  time  an  owl  alighted  every  night  on  the  summit 
of  the  Capitol,  and  though  chased  away  by  my  servants  always  came 
back  again.  For  twelve  nights  this  took  my  sleep  and  all  quiet  of 
mind  from  me.  It  was  thus  that  dreams  and  nightbirds  tormented 
one  who  had  not  been  afraid  of  the  fury  of  the  Koman  nobles,  nor 
terrified  by  armies  of  armed  men." 

The  brag  was  a  forlorn  one,  but  it  was  all  of  which  the 
fallen  Tribune  was  now  capable.  Cola  received  back  the 
Vicar  of  the  Pope,  who  probably  was  not  without  some 
affection  for  his  old  triumphant  colleague,  with  gladness 
and  humility,  and  seated  that  representative  of  ecclesiastical 
authority  beside  himself  in  his  chair  of  judgment,  before 
which  he  no  longer  summoned  the  princes  and  great  ones  of 
the  earth.  The  end  came  in  an  unexpected  way,  of  which 
the  writer  of  the  Vita  gives  the  popular  account:  it  is  a 
little  different  from  that  of  the  graver  history  but  only  in 
details.  A  certain  Pepino,  Count  Palatine  of  Altamura,  a 
fugitive  from  Naples,  whose  object  in  Rome  was  to  enlist 
soldiers  for  the  service  of  Louis  of  Hungary,  then  eager  to 
avenge  the  murder  of  his  brother  Andrew,  the  husband  of 
Queen  Joan  of  Naples  —  had  taken  up  his  abode  in  the  city. 
He  was  in  league  with  several  of  the  nobles,  and  ready  to 
lend  a  hand  in  any  available  way  against  the  Tribune. 
Fearing  to  be  brought  before  the  tribunal  of  Cola,  and  to  be 
obliged  to  explain  the  object  of  his  residence  in  Eome,  he 
shut  himself  up  in  his  palace  and  made  an  effort  to  raise 
the  city  against  its  head. 

"Messer  the  Conte  Paladino  at  this  time  threw  a  bar  (barricade) 
across  the  street,  under  the  Arch  of  Salvator  (to  defend  his  quarters 
apparently).  A  night  and  a  day  the  bells  of  St.  Angelo  in  Pescheria 
rang  a  stuormo,  but  no  one  attempted  to  break  down  the  bar.  The 
Tribune  sent  a  party  of  horsemen  against  the  bar,  and  an  officer  named 
Scarpetta,  wounded  by  a  lance,  fell  dead  in  the  skirmish.  When  the 
Tribune  heard  that  Scarpetta  was  dead  and  that  the  people  were  not 
affected  by  the  sound  of  the  tocsin,  although  the  bell  of  St.  Angelo 


472  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

continued  to  ring,  he  sighed  deeply :  chilled  by  alarm  he  wept :  he 
knew  not  what  to  do.  His  heart  was  beaten  down  and  brought  low. 
He  had  not  the  courage  of  a  child.  Scarcely  could  he  speak.  He  be- 
lieved that  ambushes  were  laid  for  him  in  the  city,  which  was  not  true, 
for  there  was  as  yet  no  open  rebellion  :  no  one,  as  yet,  had  risen 
against  the  Tribune.  But  their  zeal  had  become  cold :  and  he  believed 
that  he  would  be  killed.  What  can  be  said  more  ?  He  knew  he  had 
not  the  courage  to  die  in  the  service  of  the  people  as  he  had  promised. 
Weeping  and  sighing,  he  addressed  as  many  as  were  there,  saying  that 
he  had  done  well,  but  that  from  envy  the  people  were  not  content  with 
him.  'Now  in  the  seventh  month  am  I  driven  from  my  dominion.' 
Having  said  these  words  weeping,  he  mounted  his  horse  and  sounded 
the  silver  trumpets,  and  bearing  the  imperial  insignia,  accompanied  by 
armed  men,  he  caine  down  as  in  a  triumph,  and  went  to  the  Castle  of 
St.  Angelo,  and  there  shut  himself  in.  His  wife,  disguised  in  the  habit 
of  a  monk,  came  from  the  Palazzo  de  Lalli.  When  the  Tribune  de- 
scended from  his  greatness  the  others  also  wept  who  were  with  him, 
and  the  miserable  people  wept.  His  chamber  was  found  to  be  full  of 
many  beautiful  things,  and  so  many  letters  were  found  there  that  you 
would  not  believe  it.  The  barons  heard  of  this  downfall,  but  three 
days  passed  before  they  returned  to  Rome  because  of  their  fear.  Even 
when  they  had  come  back  fear  was  in  their  hearts.  They  made  a 
picture  of  the  Tribune  on  the  wall  of  the  Capitol,  as  if  he  were  riding, 
but  with  his  head  down  and  his  feet  above.  They  also  painted  Cecco 
Manneo,  who  was  his  Notary  and  Chancellor,  and  Conte,  his  nephew, 
who  held  the  castle  of  Civita  Vecchia.  Then  the  Cardinal  Legate 
entered  into  Rome,  and  proceeded  against  him  and  distributed  the 
greater  part  of  his  goods,  and  proclaimed  him  to  be  a  heretic." 

Thus  suddenly  Cola  fell,  as  lie  had  risen.  His  heart  had 
failed  him  without  reason  or  necessity,  for  the  city  had  not 
shown  any  open  signs  of  rebellion,  and  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  reason  why  he  should  have  fled  to  St.  Angelo.  The 
people,  though  they  did  not  respond  to  his  call  to  arms,  took 
no  more  notice  of  the  tocsin  of  his  opponent  or  of  his  cry  of 
Death  to  the  Tribune.  Rome  lay  silent  pondering  many 
things,  caring  little  how  the  tide  turned,  perhaps,  with  the 
instinct  of  Lo  Popolo  everywhere,  thinking  that  a  change 
might  be  a  good  thing :  but  it  was  no  overt  act  on  the  part 
of  the  populace  which  drove  its  idol  away.  The  act  was 
entirely  his  own  —  his  heart  had  failed  him.  In  these  days 
we  should  say  his  nerves  had  broken  down.  The  phrase- 
ology is  different,  but  the  things  were  the  same.  His  down- 
fall, however,  was  not  perhaps  quite  so  sudden  in  reality  as 


iv.]  DECLINE  AND  FALL.  473 

it  appears  in  the  chronicle.  It  would  seem  that  he  endeav- 
oured to  escape  to  Civita  Vecchia  where  his  nephew  was 
governor,  but  was  not  received  there,  and  had  to  come  back 
to  Rome,  and  hide  his  head  once  more  for  a  short  time  in 
St.  Angelo.  But  it  is  certain  that  before  the  end  of  Janu- 
ary, 1438,  he  had  finally  disappeared,  a  shamed  and  name- 
less man,  his  titles  abolished,  his  property  divided  among 
his  enemies.  Never  was  a  downfall  more  sudden  or  more 
complete. 

Stefano  Colonna  and  his  friends  re-entered  Eome  with 
little  appearance  of  triumph.  The  remembrance  of  the 
Porta  San  Lorenzo  was  too  recent  for  rejoicings,  and  it  must 
be  put  to  the  credit  of  the  old  chief,  bereaved  and  sorrowful, 
that  no  reprisals  were  made,  that  a  general  amnesty  was 
proclaimed,  and  the  peace  of  the  city  preserved.  Cola's 
family,  at  least  for  the  time,  remained  peaceably  at  Kome, 
and  met  with  no  harm.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  unfortunate 
young  Knight  of  Victory  who  had  been  sprinkled  with  the 
blood  of  the  Colonnas.  The  Tribune  went  down  like  a 
stone,  and  for  the  moment,  of  him  who  had  filled  men's 
mouths  and  minds  with  so  many  strange  tidings,  there  was 
no  more  to  tell. 

Cola's  absence  from  Kome  lasted  for  seven  years ;  of 
which  time  there  is  no  mention  whatever  in  the  Vita,  which 
concerns  itself  exclusively  with  things  that  happened  in 
Borne;  but  his  steps  can  be  very  clearly  traced.  We  never 
again  find  our  enthusiast,  he  who  first  ascended  the  Capitol 
in  a  passion  of  disinterested  zeal  and  patriotism,  approved 
by  every  honest  visionary  and  every  suffering  citizen,  a 
man  chosen  of  God  to  deliver  the  city.  That  his  motives 
were  ever  ill  motives,  or  that  he  had  begun  to  seek  his  own 
prosperity  alone,  it  would  be  hard  to  say :  but  he  appears 
to  us  henceforward  in  a  changed  aspect  as  the  eager  con* 
spirator,  the  commonplace  plotter  and  schemer,  hungry  for 
glory  and  plunder,  and  using  every  means,  by  hook  or  by 


474  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

crook,  to  recover  what  he  has  lost,  which  is  a  far  more  famil- 
iar figure  than  the  ideal  Reformer,  the  disinterested  revolu- 
tionary. We  meet  with  that  vulgar  hero  a  hundred  times 
in  the  stormy  record  of  Italian  politics,  a  man  without  scru- 
ples, sticking  at  nothing.  But  Rienzi  was  of  a  different 
nature :  he  was  at  once  a  less  and  a  greater  sinner.  It  would 
be  unjustifiable  to  say  that  he  ever  gave  up  the  thought  of 
the  Buono  Stato,  or  ceased  to  desire  the  welfare  of  Rome. 
But  in  the  long  interval  of  his  disappearance  from  the  scene, 
he  not  only  plotted  like  the  other,  but  used  that  higher 
motive,  and  the  mystic  elements  that  were  in  the  air,  and 
the  tendency  towards  all  that  was  occult,  and  much  that 
was  noble  in  the  aspirations  of  the  visionaries  of  his  time, 
to  further  the  one  object,  his  return  to  power,  to  the  Capitol, 
and  to  the  dominion  of  Rome.  A  conspirator  is  the  com- 
monplace of  Italian  story,  at  every  period:  and  the  pre- 
tender, catching  at  every  straw  to  get  back  to  his  unsteady 
throne,  besieging  every  potentate  that  can  help  him,  plead- 
ing every  inducement  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  —  self- 
interest,  philanthropy,  the  service  of  God,  the  most  generous 
and  the  meanest  sentiments  —  is  also  a  very  well  known 
figure;  but  it  is  rare  to  find  a  man  truly  affected  by  the 
most  mystic  teachings  of  religion,  yet  pressing  them  also 
into  his  service,  and  making  use  of  what  he  conceives  to  be 
the  impulses  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  the  furtherance  of  his 
private  ends,  without,  nevertheless,  so  far  as  can  be  asserted, 
becoming  a  hypocrite  or  insincere  in  the  faith  which  he  pro- 
fesses. 

This  was  the  strange  development  to  which  the  Tribune 
came.  After  some  vain  attempts  to  awaken  in  the  Roman 
territory  friends  who  could  help  him,  his  heart  broken  by 
the  fickleness  and  desertion  of  the  Popolo  in  which  he  had 
trusted,  he  took  refuge  in  the  wild  mountain  country  of  the 
Apennines,  where  there  existed  a  rude  and  strange  religious 
party,  aiming  in  the  midst  of  the  most  austere  devotion  at  a 


iv.]  DECLINE  AND  FALL.  475 

total  overturn  of  society,  and  that  return  of  a  primeval  age 
of  innocence  and  bliss  which  is  so  seductive  to  the  mystical 
mind.  In  the  caves  and  dens  of  the  earth  and  in  the  moun- 
tain villages  and  little  convents,  there  dwelt  a  severe  sect  of 
the  Franciscans,  men  whose  love  of  Poverty,  their  founder's 
bride  and  choice,  was  almost  stronger  than  their  love  of  that 
founder  himself.  The  Fraticelli  were  only  heretics  by  dint 
of  holding  their  Eule  more  strictly  than  the  other  religious 
of  their  order,  and  by  indulging  in  ecstatic  visions  of  a  reno- 
vated state  and  a  purified  people  —  visions  less  personal 
though  not  less  sincere  or  pious,  than  those  which  inflicted 
upon  Francis  himself  the  semblance  of  the  wounds  of  the 
Redeemer,  in  that  passion  of  pity  and  love  which  possessed 
his  heart.  The  exile  among  them,  who  had  himself  been 
aroused  out  of  the  obscurity  of  ordinary  life  by  a  correspond- 
ing dream,  found  himself  stimulated  and  inspired  over  again 
by  the  teaching  of  these  visionaries.  One  of  them,  it  is  said, 
found  him  out  in  the  refuge  where  he  thought  himself  abso- 
lutely unknown,  and,  addressing  him  by  name,  told  him 
that  he  had  still  a  great  career  before  him,  and  that  it 
should  be  his  to  restore  to  Rome  the  double  reign  of  univer- 
sal dominion,  to  establish  the  Pope  and  the  Empire  in  the 
imperial  city,  and  reconcile  for  ever  those  two  joint  rulers 
appointed  of  God. 

It  is  curious  to  find  that  what  is  to  some  extent  the  exist- 
ing state  of  affairs  —  the  junction  in  one  place  of  the  two 
monarchs  of  the  earth — should  have  been  the  dream  and 
hope  of  religious  visionaries  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  The  Emperor  to  them  was  but  a  glorified  King  of 
Italy,  with  a  vague  and  unknown  world  behind  him ;  and 
they  believed  that  the  Millennium  would  come,  when  that, 
supreme  sovereign  on  the  Capitol  and  the  Holy  Father  from 
the  seat  of  St.  Peter  should  sway  the  world  at  their  will. 
The  same  class,  in  the  same  order  now  —  so  much  as  con- 
fiscation after  confiscation  permits  that  order  to  exist  — 


476  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

would  fight  to  its  last  gasp  against  the  forced  conjunction, 
which  its  fathers  before  it  thus  thought  of  as  the  thing 
most  to  be  prayed  for,  and  schemed  for,  in  the  whole  world. 

When  others  beside  the  Fraticelli  discovered  Rienzi's 
hiding-place,  and  he  found  himself,  or  imagined  himself,  in 
some  danger,  he  went  to  Prague  to  seek  shelter  with  the 
Emperor  Charles  IV.,  and  a  remarkable  correspondence 
took  place  between  that  potentate  on  one  side  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Prague,  his  counsellor,  and  Rienzi  on  the 
other,  in  which  the  exile  promised  many  splendours  to 
the  monarch,  and  offered  himself  as  his  guide  to  Rome,  and 
to  lend  him  the  weight  of  his  influence  there  with  the  people 
over  whom  Rienzi  believed  that  he  would  yet  himself  pre- 
side with  greater  power  than  ever.  That  Charles  himself 
should  reply  to  these  letters,  and  reason  the  matter  out  with 
this  forlorn  wanderer,  shows  of  itself  what  a  power  was  in 
his  words  and  in  the  fervour  of  his  purpose.  But  it  is  ill 
talking  between  a  great  monarch  and  a  penniless  exile,  and 
Charles  seems  to  have  felt  no  scruple  in  handing  him  over, 
after  full  exposition  of  his  views,  to  the  archbishop  as  a 
heretic.  That  prelate  transferred  him  to  the  Pope,  to  be 
dealt  with  as  a  man  already  excommunicated  under  the  ban 
of  the  Church,  and  now  once  more  promulgating  strange 
doctrines,  ought  to  be ;  and  thus  his  freedom,  and  his  wan- 
dering, and  the  comparative  safety  of  his  life  came  to  an 
end,  and  a  second  stage  of  strange  development  began. 

The  fortunes  of  Rienzi  were  at  a  very  low  ebb  when  he 
reached  Avignon  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  of 
those  whom  he  had  assailed  and  those  whom  he  had  dis- 
appointed, at  that  court  where  there  was  no  one  to  say  a 
good  word  for  him,  and  where  all  that  was  best  in  him  was 
even  more  greatly  against  him  than  that  which  was  worst. 
In  the  dungeons  of  Avignon,  in  the  stronghold  of  the  Pope 
who  had  so  much  cause  to  regret  having  once  sanctioned  and 
patronised  the  Tribune,  his  cause  had  every  appearance  of 


iv.]  DECLINE   AND   FALL.  477 

being  lost  for  ever.  It  was  fortunate  for  him  that  there 
was  no  longer  a  Cardinal  Colonna  at  that  court ;  but  there 
was,  at  the  same  time,  no  champion  to  take  up  his  cause. 
Things  indeed  went  so  badly  with  him,  that  he  was  actually 
condemned  to  death  as  a  heretic,  himself  allowing  that  he 
was  guilty  and  worthy  of  death  in  some  moment  of  pro- 
found depression,  or  perhaps  with  the  hope  of  touching  the 
hearts  of  his  persecutors  by  humility  as  great  as  had  been  the 
pretensions  of  his  brief  and  exciting  reign.  For  poor  Cola 
after  all,  if  the  affair  at  Porta  San  Lorenzo  is  left  out  — 
and  that  was  no  fault  of  his  —  had  done  nothing  worthy  of 
death.  He  had  been  carried  away  by  the  passion  and  mad- 
ness of  an  almost  impossible  success ;  but  he  had  scarcely 
ever  been  rebellious  to  the  Church,  and  his  vagaries  of  doc- 
trine were  rather  due  to  the  mingling  together  of  the  clas- 
sical with  the  religious,  and  the  inflation  of  certain  not 
otherwise  unorthodox  ideas,  than  any  real  rebellion;  but 
he  carried  his  prevailing  sentiment  and  character  into 
everything,  being  lower  than  any  in  the  depths  of  his  down- 
fall as  he  had  been  higher  than  any  on  the  heights  of  his 
visionary  pride  and  short-lived  triumph. 

He  was  saved  from  this  sentence  in  a  manner  as  fantas- 
tical as  himself.  It  may  be  believed  that  it  was  never  in- 
tended to  be  carried  out,  and  that,  especially  after  his 
acknowledgment  of  the  justice  of  his  sentence,  means 
would  have  been  found  of  preserving  him  from  its  execu- 
tion; very  likely,  indeed,  the  curious  means  which  were 
found,  originated  in  some  charitable  whisper  that  a  plausi- 
ble pretence  of  a  reason  for  letting  him  off  would  not  be 
disagreeable  to  the  Pope.  He  was  saved  by  the  suggestion 
that  he  was  a  poet !  We  have  the  story  in  full  detail  from 
Petrarch  himself,  who  is  not  without  a  perception  of  its 
absurdity,  and  begins  his  letter  by  an  indignant  descrip- 
tion of  the  foolish  and  pretended  zeal  for  poetry  of  which 
this  was  so  strange  an  example.  " Poetry,"  he  says,  "divine 


478  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

gift  and  vouchsafed  by  heaven  to  so  few,  I  see  it,  friend,  if 
not  prostituted,  at  least  made  into  a  vulgar  thing. 

"I  feel  my  heart  rise  against  this,  and  you,  if  I  know  you  well, 
will  not  tolerate  such  an  abuse  for  any  consideration.  Neither  at 
Athens,  nor  at  Rome,  even  in  the  lifetime  of  Horace,  was  there  so 
much  talk  of  poets  and  poetry  as  at  the  present  day  upon  the  banks 
of  the  Rhone  —  although  there  never  was  either  time  or  place  in 
which  men  understood  it  less.  But  now  I  will  check  your  rising  bile 
by  laughter  and  show  how  a  jest  can  come  in  the  midst  of  melancholy. 

"  There  has  lately  come  to  this  court  —  or  rather  has  not  come  but 
has  been  brought  —  a  prisoner,  Mccola  di  Lorenzo,  once  the  formidable 
Tribune  of  Rome,  now  of  all  the  men  the  most  unhappy  —  and  what 
is  more,  not  perhaps  worthy  of  the  compassion  which  the  misery  of 
his  present  state  calls  forth.  He  might  have  ended  his  days  gloriously 
upon  the  Capitol,  but  brought  himself  down  instead,  to  the  great 
shame  of  the  Republic  and  of  the  Roman  name,  into  the  condition  of 
a  prisoner,  first  in  Bohemia  and  now  here.  Unfortunately,  many 
more  than  I  now  like  to  think  of  are  the  praises  and  encouragements 
which  I  myself  have  written  to  him.  Lover  of  virtue  as  I  am,  I  could 
not  do  less  than  exalt  and  admire  the  generous  undertaking  of  the 
strong  man:  and  thankful  on  account  of  Italy,  hoping  to  see  the 
Empire  of  Rome  arise  again  and  secure  the  peace  of  the  whole  world, 
my  heart  was  inundated  by  such  joy,  on  account  of  so  many  fine 
events,  that  to  contain  myself  was  impossible ;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  I  almost  took  part  in  his  glory  by  giving  encouragement  and 
comfort  to  his  enterprise :  by  which  as  both  his  messengers  and  his 
letters  showed,  he  was  himself  set  on  fire  —  and  always  more  and 
more  willingly  I  set  myself  to  increase  this  stimulus  with  every 
argument  I  could  think  of,  and  to  feed  the  flame  of  that  ardent 
spirit,  well  knowing  that  every  generous  heart  kindles  at  the  fire  of 
praise  and  glory.  For  this  reason  with  an  applause  which  to  some 
seemed  extravagant  but  to  me  very  just,  I  exalted  his  every  act, 
encouraging  him  to  complete  the  magnanimous  task  which  he  had 
begun.  The  letters  which  I  then  wrote  went  through  many  hands : 
and  since  I  am  no  prophet  and  still  less  was  he  ever  a  prophet  I  am 
not  ashamed  of  what  I  wrote :  for  certainly  what  he  did  in  those 
days  and  promised  to  do,  not  in  my  opinion  alone  but  to  the  praise 
and  admiration  of  the  whole  world,  were  very  worthy,  and  I  would 
not  abolish  the  memory  of  these  letters  of  mine  from  my  memory 
solely  because  he  prefers  an  ignoble  life  to  a  glorious  death.  But  it  is 
useless  to  discuss  a  thing  which  is  impossible;  and  however  much  I 
might  desire  to  destroy  them  I  could  not  do  it.  As  soon  as  they 
come  into  the  hands  of  the  public,  the  writer  has  no  more  power 
over  them.  Let  us  return  to  our  story. 

"  This  man  then,  who  had  filled  the  wicked  with  terror,  the  good 
with  expectation,  and  with  joyful  hope  the  universe,  has  come  before 
this  Court  humiliated  and  abject ;  and  he  whom  the  people  of  Rome 
and  all  the  cities  of  Italy  exalted,  was  seen  passing  through  our  streets 
between  two  soldiers,  affording  a  miserable  spectacle  to  the  rabble 


iv.]  DECLINE  AND  FALL.  479 

eager  to  see  face  to  face  one  whose  name  they  had  heard  to  sound  so 
high.  He  came  from  the  King  of  Rome  (a  title  of  the  Emperor)  to  the 
Roman  Pontiff,  oh  marvellous  commerce  !  As  soon  as  he  had  arrived 
the  Pope  committed  to  three  princes  of  the  Church  the  charge  of  ex- 
amining into  his  cause,  and  judging  of  what  punishment  he  was  guilty 
who  had  attempted  to  free  the  State." 

The  letter  is  too  long  to  quote  entire,  and  Petrarch, 
though  maintaining  the  cause  of  his  former  friend,  is  per- 
haps too  anxious  to  make  it  clear  that,  had  Eienzi  given 
due  attention  to  his  own  letters,  this  great  reverse  would 
never  have  happened  to  him ;  yet  it  is  on  the  whole  a  noble 
plea  for  the  Tribune.  "  In  this  man,"  the  poet  declares, 
"  I  had  placed  the  last  hope  of  Italian  liberty,  and,  having 
long  known  and  loved  him  from  the  moment  when  he  put 
his  hand  to  this  great  work,  he  seemed  to  me  worthy  of 
all  veneration  and  honour.  Whatever  might  be  the  end 
of  the  work  I  cannot  cease  to  hold  as  magnificent  its  begin- 
ning : "  and  he  regrets  with  great  indignation  that  it  was 
this  beginning  which  was  chiefly  brought  against  him,  and 
that  his  description  of  himself  as  Nicolas,  severe  and 
clement,  had  more  weight  with  his  judges  than  his  good 
government  or  the  happy  change  that  took  place  in  Rome 
during  his  sway.  We  must  hasten,  however,  to  the  irony 
of  the  Tribune's  deliverance. 

"In  this  miserable  state  (after  so  much  that  is  sorrowful,  here  at 
last  is  something  to  laugh  at),  I  learn  from  the  letters  of  my  friends 
that  there  is  still  a  hope  of  saving  him,  and  that  because  of  a  notion 
which  has  been  spread  abroad  among  the  vulgar,  that  he  is  a  famous 
poet.  .  .  .  What  can  we  think  of  this  ?  Truly  I,  more  than  I  can 
say  in  words,  comfort  myself  and  rejoice  in  the  thought  that  the 
Muses  are  so  much  honoured  —  and  what  is  still  more  marvellous, 
among  those  who  never  knew  anything  about  them  —  as  to  save  from 
a  fatal  sentence  a  man  who  is  shielded  by  their  name.  What  greater 
sign  of  reverence  could  be  given  than  that  the  name  of  Poetry  should 
thus  save  from  death  a  man  who  rightly  or  wrongly  is  abhorred  by  his 
judges,  who  has  been  convicted  of  the  crime  laid  to  his  charge  and  has 
confessed  it,  and  by  the  unanimous  sentence  of  the  tribunal  has  been 
found  worthy  of  death  ?  I  rejoice,  I  repeat,  I  congratulate  him  and 
the  Muses  with  him  :  that  he  should  have  such  patrons,  and  they  so 
unlooked-for  an  honour  —  nor  would  I  to  a  man  so  unhappy,  reduced 


480  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  such  an  extreme  of  danger  and  of  doubt,  grudge  the  protecting 
name  of  poet.  But  if  you  would  know  what  I  think,  I  will  say  that 
Niccola  di  Lorenzo  is  a  man  of  the  greatest  eloquence,  most  persuasive 
and  ready  of  speech,  a  writer  lucid  and  harmonious  and  of  an  elegant 
style.  I  do  not  remember  any  poet  whom  he  has  not  read ;  but  this 
no  more  makes  him  a  poet  than  a  man  would  be  a  weaver  who 
clothed  himself  with  garments  woven  by  another  hand.  To  merit  the 
name  of  poet  it  is  not  enough  to  have  made  verses.  But  this  man  has 
never  that  I  know  written  a  single  line." 

There  is  not  a  word  of  all  this  in  the  Vita.  To  the  chron- 
icler, Rienzi,  from  the  moment  when  he  turned  his  face 
again  towards  Rome,  was  never  in  any  danger.  As  he  came 
from  Germany  to  Avignon  all  the  people  in  the  villages 
came  out  to  greet  him,  and  would  have  rescued  him  but  for 
his  continual  explanation  that  he  -went  to  the  Pope  of  his 
own  will  j  nor  does  his  biographer  seem  to  be  aware  that 
the  Tribune  ran  any  risk  of  his  life.  He  did  escape,  how- 
ever, by  a  hair's  breadth  only,  and,  as  Petrarch  had  perfect 
knowledge  of  what  was  going  on,  no  doubt  in  the  very  way 
described  by  the  poet.  But  he  was  not  delivered  from 
prison  until  Cardinal  Albornoz  set  out  for  Rome  with  the 
Pope's  orders  to  pacify  and  quiet  the  turbulent  city.  Many 
and  great  had  been  its  troubles  in  those  seven  years.  It 
had  fallen  back  into  the  old  hands  —  an  Orsini  and  a 
Colonna,  a  Colonna  and  an  Orsini.  There  had  been  a  tem- 
porary lull  in  the  year  of  the  Jubilee  (1350),  when  all  the 
world  nocked  to  Rome  to  obtain  the  Indulgence,  and  to 
have  their  sins  washed  away  in  the  full  stream  of  Papal 
forgiveness.  It  is  said  that  Rienzi  himself  made  his  way 
stealthily  back  to  share  in  that  Indulgence,  but  without 
making  himself  known :  and  the  interest  of  the  citizens  was 
so  much  involved  in  peace,  and  it  was  so  essential  to  keep  a 
certain  rule  of  order  and  self-restraint  on  account  of  the 
many  guests  who  brought  money  to  the  city,  that  there  was 
a  temporary  lull  of  its  troubles.  The  town  was  no  more 
than  a  great  inn  from  Easter  to  Christmas,  and  wealth, 
which  has  always  a  soothing  and  quieting  influence,  poured 


m 


i 


THE  TARPEIAN  ROCK.  ^  /ttC6  ^«^e 


iv.]  DECLINE  AND  FALL.  483 

into  the  pockets  of  the  citizens,  fully  occupied  as  they  were 
by  the  care  of  their  guests,  and  by  the  continual  ceremonials 
and  sacred  functions  of  those  busy  days.  The  Jubilee 
brought  not  only  masses  of  pious  pilgrims  from  every  part 
of  the  world,  but  innumerable  lawsuits  —  cases  of  conscience 
and  of  secular  disputes  —  to  be  settled  by  the  busy  Cardinal 
who  sat  instead  of  the  Pope,  hearing  daily  what  every  appli- 
cant might  have  to  say.  There  had  been  a  new  temporary 
bridge  built  in  order  to  provide  for  the  pressure  of  the 
crowd,  and  avoid  that  block  of  the  old  bridge  of  St.  Angelo 
which  Dante  describes  in  the  Inferno,  when  the  mass  of 
pilgrims  coming  and  going  broke  down  one  of  the  arches. 
Other  large  if  hasty  labours  of  preparation  were  also  in 
hand.  The  Capitol  had  to  be  repaired,  and  old  churches 
furbished  up,  and  every  scrap  of  drapery  and  tapestry 
which  was  to  be  had  employed  to  make  the  city  fine.  So 
that  for  one  year  at  least  there  had  been  no  thought  but  to 
put  the  best  possible  face  on  things,  to  quench  internal  dis- 
orders for  the  moment,  and  make  all  kinds  of  temporary 
arrangements  for  comfort  and  accommodation,  as  is  often  done 
in  a  family  when  important  visitors  force  a  salutary  self- 
denial  upon  all ;  so  that  there  were  a  hundred  inducements 
to  preserve  a  front  of  good  behaviour  and  fit  decorum  before 
the  world. 

After  the  Jubilee  however,  things  fell  back  once  more 
into  the  old  confusion :  once  more  there  was  robbery  and 
violence  on  every  road  to  Rome ;  once  more  an  Orsini  and 
a  Colonna  balanced  and  struggled  with  each  other  as  Sena- 
tors, with  no  time  to  attend  to  anything  but  their  personal 
interests,  and  no  thought  for  the  welfare  of  the  people.  In 
1352,  however,  things  had  come  to  such  a  pass  that  a  violent 
remedy  had  to  be  tried  again,  and  the  Romans  once  more 
took  matters  in  their  own  hands  and  elected  an  official  of 
their  own,  a  certain  Cerroni,  in  the  place  of  the  unworthy 
Senators.  He  however  held  the  position  a  very  short  time, 


484  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

and  being  in  his  turn  deserted  by  the  people,  gave  up  the 
thankless  task.  That  year  there  was  a  riot  in  which  the 
Orsini  Senator  was  stoned  to  death  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
which  lead  to  the  Capitol,  while  his  colleague  Colonna, 
another  Stefano,  escaped  by  the  other  side.  Then  once 
more  the  expedient  of  a  popular  election  was  attempted 
and  a  certain  Francesco  Baroncelli  was  elected  who  styled 
himself  the  second  Tribune  of  the  people.  The  Pope  had 
also  attempted  to  do  what  he  could,  once  by  a  committee  of 
four  Cardinals,  constantly  by  Legates  sent  to  guide  and  pro- 
tect the  ever-troubled  city.  The  hopelessness  of  these  re- 
peated efforts  was  proved  over  and  over  again.  Villani  the 
historian  writes  with  dismay  that  "  the  changes  which  took 
place  in  the  ancient  mother  and  mistress  of  the  universe 
did  not  deserve  to  be  recorded  because  of  their  frivolity  and 
baseness."  Baroncelli  too  fell  after  a  short  time,  and  it 
seemed  that  no  government,  and  no  reformation,  could  last. 
In  the  meantime  Pope  Clement  VI.  died  at  Avignon,  and 
Innocent  VI.  reigned  in  his  stead.  At  the  beginning  of  this 
new  reign  a  new  attempt  to  pacificate  Rome,  and  to  restore 
it  to  order  and  peace,  was  made.  As  it  was  the  general 
feeling  that  a  stranger  was  the  safest  ruler  in  the  midst  of 
the  network  of  private  and  family  interests  in  which  the 
city  was  bound,  the  new  Pope  with  a  sincere  desire  to  amel- 
iorate the  situation  sent  the  Spanish  Cardinal  Albornoz  to 
the  rescue  of  Rome.  All  this  was  in  the  year  1353  when 
Rienzi,  his  death  sentence  remitted  because  of  the  illusion 
that  he  was  a  poet,  lay  in  prison  in  Avignon.  His  story 
was  well  known:  and  it  was  well  known  too,  that  the 
people  of  Rome,  after  having  deserted  him,  were  eager  to 
have  him  back,  and  had  to  all  appearance  repented  very 
bitterly  their  behaviour  to  him.  The  Pope  adopted  the 
strong  and  daring  expedient  of  taking  the  old  demagogue 
from  his  prison  and  giving  him  a  place  in  the  Legate's  coun- 
cil. There  was  no  intention  of  replacing  him  in  his  former 


iv.]  DECLINE   AND   FALL.  485 

position,  but  he  was  eager  to  accept  the  secondary  place, 
and  to  give  the  benefit  of  his  advice  and  guidance  to  the 
Legate.  All  appearance  of  his  old  ambition  seemed  indeed 
to  have  died  out  of  him.  He  went  simply  in  the  train  of 
Albornoz  to  Montefiascone,1  which  had  long  been  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Papal  representative,  and  from  whence  the 
Legate  conducted  a  campaign  against  the  towns  of  the 
"Patrimony,"  each  of  whom,  like  the  mother  city,  occa- 
sionally secured  a  gleam  of  uncertain  independence,  or  else 
—  which  was  of tener  the  case  —  fell  into  the  clutches  of 
some  one  of  the  band  of  nobles  who  had  so  long  held  Eome 
in  fee.  It  is  very  likely  that  Eienzi  had  no  ambitious 
motive,  nor  thought  of  a  new  revolution  when  he  set  out. 
He  took  part  like  the  rest  of  the  Cardinal's  following  in 
several  of  the  expeditions,  especially  against  his  old  enemy 
Giovanni  di  Vico,  still  as  masterful  and  as  dangerous  as 
ever,  but  attempted  nothing  more. 

1  An  amusing  story  used  to  be  told  in  Rome  concerning  this  place, 
which  no  doubt  sprang  from  the  legend  of  that  old  ecclesiastical  inhab- 
itation. It  was  that  a  bishop,  travelling  across  the  country  (it  is  always 
a  bishop  who  is  the  bon  vivant  of  Italian  story) ,  sent  a  messenger  before 
him  with  instructions  to  write  on  the  wall  of  every  town  his  opinion  of 
the  wine  of  the  place,  that  his  master  might  judge  whether  he  should 
alight  there  or  not.  If  it  was  good  Est  was  to  be  the  word.  When  the 
courier  came  to  Montefiascone  he  was  so  delighted  with  the  vintage 
there  that  he  emblazoned  the  gate  with  a  triple  legend  of  Est,  Est, 
Est.  The  bishop  arrived,  alighted ;  and  never  left  Montefiascone 
more.  The  wine  in  its  native  flasks  is  still  distinguished  by  this 
inscription. 


BORGHESE  GA£ID£N3. 


<$~*,t~^  f*~4+. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE    SOLDIEK    OF    FORTUNE. 

T I  iHE  short  episode  wMch  here  follows  introduces  an 
-L  entirely  new  element  into  B/ienzi's  life.  His  nature 
was  not  that  of  a  conspirator  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word ;  and  though  he  had  schemed  and  struggled  much  to 
return  to  Borne,  it  had  lately  been  under  the  shield  of  Pope 
or  Emperor,  and  never  with  any  evident  purpose  of  self- 
aggrandisement.  But  the  wars  which  were  continually  rag- 
ing in  Italy,  and  in  which  every  man's  hand  was  against  his 
neighbour's,  had  raised  up  a  new  agent  in  the  much  con- 
tested field,  by  whose  aid,  more  than  by  that  of  either  Pope 
or  Emperor,  principalities  rose  and  fell,  and  great  fortunes 
were  made  and  lost.  This  was  the  singular  institution  of 

48G 


CH.  v.]  THE   SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE.  487 

the  Soldier  of  Fortune,  the  Free  Lance,  whose  bands,  with- 
out country,  without  object  except  pay  and  some  vulgar 
version  of  fame,  without  creed  or  nationality  or  scruples  of 
any  kind,  roamed  over  Europe,  ready  to  adopt  any  cause 
or  throw  their  weight  on  any  side,  and  furnishing  the  very 
material  that  was  necessary  to  carry  on  those  perpetual 
struggles,  which  kept  Italy  in  particular,  and  most  other 
countries  more  or  less,  in  constant  commotion.  These  men 
took  service  with  the  utmost  impartiality  on  whatever  side 
was  likely  to  give  them  the  highest  pay,  or  the  best  oppor- 
tunity of  acquiring  wealth  —  their  leaders  occasionally  pos- 
sessing themselves  of  the  lordship  of  a  rich  territory,  the 
inferior  captains  falling  into  lesser  fiefs  and  windfalls  of  all 
kinds,  the  merest  man-at-arms  apt  to  enrich  himself,  either 
by  the  terror  he  inspired,  or  the  protection  he  could  give. 
It  was  their  existence  indeed,  it  may  almost  be  said,  that 
made  these  endless  wars,  which  were  so  generally  without 
motive,  demonstrations  of  vanity  of  one  city  against  another, 
or  attempts  on  the  part  of  one  to  destroy  the  liberties  and 
trade  of  another,  which,  had  they  been  carried  on  by  the 
citizens  themselves,  must  have  in  the  long  run  brought  all 
human  affairs  to  a  deadlock,  and  become  impossible:  but 
which,  when  carried  on  through  the  agency  of  the  merce- 
naries, were  little  more  than  an  exciting  game,  more  exciting 
than  any  Kriegsspiel  that  has  been  invented  since.  The  men 
were  themselves  moving  castles,  almost  impregnable,  more 
apt  to  be  suffocated  in  their  armour  than  killed  in  honest 
fight,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  their  campaigns  were  singu- 
larly bloodless ;  but  they  were  like  the  locusts,  the  scourge 
of  the  country,  leaving  nothing  but  destruction  and  rapine 
behind  them  wherever  they  moved.  The  dreadful  army 
known  as  La  Grande  Compagnia,  of  which  Fra  Moreale  (the 
Chevalier  de  Monreal,  but  always  bearing  this  name  in  Italy) 
was  the  head,  was  at  this  time  pervading  Italy  —  everywhere 
feared,  everywhere  sought,  the  cruel  and  terrible  chief  being 


488  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

at  the  same  time  a  romantic  and  high  born  personage,  a 
Knight  Hospitaller,  the  equal  of  the  great  Seigneurs  whom 
he  served,  and  ready  to  be  himself  some  time  a  great  Sei- 
gneur too,  the  head  of  the  first  principality  which  he  should 
be  strong  enough  to  lay  hold  of,  as  the  Sforza  had  done  of 
Milan.  The  services  of  such  a  man  were  of  course  a  never- 
failing  resource  and  temptation  to  every  adventurer  or  pre- 
tender who  could  afford  to  procure  the  money  to  pay  for 
them. 

There  is  no  proof  that  Eienzi  had  any  plan  of  securing 
the  dominion  of  Borne  by  such  means ;  indeed  his  practice, 
as  will  be  seen,  leads  to  the  contrary  conclusion;  but  the 
transaction  to  which  he  became  a  party  while  he  was  in 
Perugia  —  under  the  orders  of  Cardinal  Albornoz  —  shows 
that  he  was,  for  the  moment  at  least,  attracted  by  the 
strange  possibilities  put  within  his  reach  :  as  it  also  demon- 
strates the  strangely  business-like  character  and  trade  aspect 
of  an  agency  so  warlike  and  romantic.  At  Perugia  and 
other  towns  through  which  he  passed,  the  Tribune  was 
recognised  and  everywhere  followed  by  the  Eomans,  who 
were  to  be  found  throughout  the  Patrimony,  and  who  had 
but  one  entreaty  to  make  to  him.  The  chronicler  recovers 
all.  his  wonted  energy  when  he  resumes  his  narrative,  leav- 
ing with  delight  the  dull  conflicts  of  the  Roman  nobles 
among  themselves,  and  with  the  Legate  vainly  attempting 
to  pacify  and  negotiate  between  them  —  for  the  living  figure 
of  the  returned  leader,  and  the  eager  populace  who  hailed 
him  again,  as  their  deliverer,  as  if  it  had  been  others  and 
not  themselves  who  had  driven  him  away !  Even  in  Monte- 
fiascone  our  biographer  tells,  there  was  such  recourse  of 
Eomans  to  him  that  it  was  stupore,  stupefying,  to  see  them. 

"  Every  Roman  turned  to  him,  and  multitudes  visited  him.  A 
great  tail  of  the  populace  followed  him  wherever  he  went.  Every- 
body marvelled,  including  the  Legate,  to  see  how  he  was  followed. 
After  the  destruction  of  Viterbo,  when  the  army  returned,  many 
Romans  who  were  in  it,  some  of  them  important  men,  came  to  Rienzi. 


v.]  THE   SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE.  489 

They  said,  '  Return  to  thy  Rome,  cure  her  of  her  sickness.  Be  her 
lord.  We  will  give  thee  help,  favour,  and  strength.  Be  in  no  doubt. 
Never  were  you  so  much  desired  or  so  much  loved  as  at  present. '  These 
flatteries  the  Romans  gave  him,  but  they  did  not  give  him  a  penny  of 
money :  their  words  however  moved  Cola  di  Rienzi,  and  also  the  glory 
of  it,  for  which  he  always  thirsted  by  nature,  and  he  began  to  think 
what  he  could  do  to  make  a  foundation,  and  where  he  would  find  people 
and  money  to  go  to  Rome.  He  talked  of  it  with  the  Legate,  but  neither 
did  he  supply  him  with  any  money.  It  had  been  settled  that  the  people 
of  Perugia  should  make  a  provision  for  him,  giving  him  enough  to  live 
upon  honourably ;  but  that  was  not  sufficient  for  raising  an  army.  And 
for  this  reason  he  went  to  Perugia  and  met  the  Counsellors  there.  He 
spoke  well  and  promised  better,  and  the  Counsellors  were  very  eager 
to  hear  the  sweetness  of  his  words,  to  which  they  lent  an  attentive  ear. 
These  they  licked  up  like  honey.  But  they  were  responsible  for  the 
goods  of  the  commune,  and  not  one  penny  (Cortonese)  could  he  obtain 
from  them. 

"  At  this  time  there  were  in  Perugia  two  young  gentlemen  of  Pro- 
vence, Messer  Arimbaldo,  doctor  of  laws,  and  Messer  Bettrom,  the 
knight  of  Narba  (Narbonne),  in  Provence,  brothers  ;  who  were  also 
the  brothers  of  the  famous  Fra  Moreale,  who  was  at  the  head  of  La 
Grande  Compagnia.  ...  He  had  acquired  much  wealth  by  robbery 
and  booty,  and  compelled  the  Commune  of  Perugia  to  provide  for  his 
brothers  who  were  there.  When  Cola  di  Rienzi  heard  that  Messer 
Arimbaldo  of  Narba,  a  young  man  who  loved  letters,  was  in  Perugia, 
he  invited  him  to  visit  him,  and  would  have  him  dine  at  his  hostel 
where  he  was.  While  they  were  at  table  Cola  di  Rienzi  began  to  talk 
of  the  greatness  of  the  Romans.  He  mingled  stories  of  Titus  Livius 
with  things  from  the  Bible.  He  opened  the  fountain  of  his  knowledge. 
Deh  !  how  he  talked  —  all  his  strength  he  put  into  his  reasoning  ;  and 
so  much  to  the  point  did  he  speak  that  every  man  was  overwhelmed 
by  such  wonderful  conversation ;  every  one  rose  to  his  feet,  put  his 
hand  to  his  ear,  and  listened  in  silence.  Messer  Arimbaldo  was  aston- 
ished by  these  fine  speeches.  He  admired  the  greatness  of  the  Romans. 
The  warmth  of  the  wine  raised  his  spirit  to  the  heights.  The  fantastic 
understand  the  fantastic.  Messer  Arimbaldo  could  not  endure  to  be 
absent  from  Cola  di  Rienzi.  He  lived  with  him,  he  walked  with  him  ; 
one  ineal  they  shared,  and  slept  in  one  bed.  He  dreamt  of  doing  great 
things,  of  raising  up  Rome,  of  restoring  its  ancient  state.  To  do  this 
money  was  wanted — three  thousand  florins  at  least.  He  pledged  him- 
self to  procure  the  three  thousand  florins,  and  it  was  promised  to  him 
that  he  should  be  made  a  citizen  of  Rome  and  captain,  and  be  much 
honoured,  all  which  was  arranged  to  the  great  despite  of  his  brother 
Messer  Bettrom.  Therefore,  Arimbaldo  took  from  the  merchants  of 
Perugia  four  thousand  florins,  to  give  them  to  Cola  di  Rienzi.  But  before 
Messer  Arimbaldo  could  give  this  money  to  Cola,  he  had  to  ask  leave 
of  his  elder  brother,  Fra  Moreale,  which  he  did,  sending  him  a  letter 
in  these  words  :  '  Honoured  brother,  —  I  have  gained  in  one  day  more 
than  you  have  done  in  all  your  life.  I  have  acquired  the  lordship  of 
Rome,  which  is  promised  to  me  by  Messer  Cola  di  Rienzi,  Knight, 
Tribune,  who  is  much  visited  by  the  Romans  and  called  by  the  people. 


490  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

I  believe  that  such  a  plan  cannot  fail.  With  the  help  of  your  genius 
nothing  could  injure  such  a  great  State ;  but  money  is  wanted  to  begin 
with.  If  it  pleases  your  brotherly  kindness,  I  am  taking  four  thousand 
florins  from  the  bank,  and  with  a  strong  armament  am  setting  out  for 
Koine.'  Era  Moreale  read  this  letter  and  replied  to  it  as  follows : 

"'I  have  thought  much  of  this  work  which  you  intend  to  do.  A 
great  and  weighty  burden  is  this  which  you  take  upon  you.  I  do  not 
understand  your  intention ;  my  mind  does  not  go  with  it,  my  reason  is 
against  it.  Nevertheless  go  on,  and  do  it  well.  In  the  first  place,  take 
great  care  that  the  four  thousand  florins  are  not  lost.  If  anything  evil 
happen  to  you,  write  to  me.  I  will  come  to  your  help  with  a  thousand 
or  two  thousand  men,  and  do  the  thing  magnificently.  Therefore  do 
not  fear.  See  that  you  and  your  brother  love  each  other,  honour  each 
other,  and  make  no  quarrel  between  you.' 

"  Messer  Arimbaldo  received  this  letter  with  much  joy,  and  arranged 
with  the  Tribune  to  set  out  for  Home." 

Fra  Moreale  was  a  good  brother  and  a  far-seeing  chief. 
He  saw  that  the  Signoria  of  Rome,  if  it  could  be  attained, 
would  be  a  good  investment  for  his  four  thousand  florins, 
and  probably  that  Cola  di  Rienzi  was  an  instrument  which 
could  easily  be  thrown  away  when  it  had  fulfilled  its  end,  so 
that  it  was  worth  while  letting  young  Arimbaldo  have  his 
way.  No  prevision  of  the  tragedy  that  was  to  come,  troubled 
the  spirit  of  the  great  brigand.  He  would  no  doubt  have 
laughed  at  the  suggestion,  that  his  young  brother's  eloquent 
demagogue,  the  bel  dicitore,  a  character  always  disdained  of 
fighting  men,  could  do  him,  with  all  his  martial  followers 
behind  him,  and  his  money  in  the  bank,  any  harm. 

The  first  thing  that  Rienzi  did  we  are  told,  was  to  clothe 
himself  gloriously  in  scarlet,  furred  with  minever  and  em- 
broidered with  gold,  in  which  garb  he  appeared  before 
the  Legate  who  had  heretofore  known  him  only  in  a  sober 
suit  of  ordinary  cloth  —  accompanied  by  the  two  brothers 
of  Moreale  and  a  train  of  attendants.  There  had  been  a 
report  of  more  disorder  than  usual  in  Rome,  a  condition 
of  things  with  which  a  recently  appointed  Senator,  ap- 
pointed as  a  stranger  to  keep  the  factions  in  order,  was 
quite  unable  to  cope :  and  there  was  therefore  a  certain 
reason  in  the  request,  when  the  Tribune  in  all  his  new 


v.]  THE  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE.  491 

finery,  came  into  the  presence  of  the  Legate,  although  he 
asked  no  less  than  to  be  made  Senator,  undertaking,  at  the 
same  time,  to  secure  the  peace  of  the  turbulent  city.  The 
biographer  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  Rienzi  in  his  sudden 
revival.  "  Splendidly  he  displayed  himself  with  his  scar- 
let hood  on  his  shoulders,  and  scarlet  mantle  adorned  with 
various  furs.  He  moved  his  head  back  and  forward,  raising 
himself  on  his  toes,  as  who  would  say  l  Who  am  I  ?  —  I,  who 
may  I  be?7"  The  Legate  as  usual  was  "stupefied"  by 
this  splendid  apparition,  but  gave  serious  ear  to  his  request, 
no  doubt  knowing  the  reality  of  his  pretensions  so  far  as 
the  Eoman  people  were  concerned.  He  finally  agreed  to  do 
what  was  required  of  him,  no  doubt  like  Era  Moreale,  con- 
fident that  the  instrument,  especially  being  so  vain  and 
slight  a  man  as  this,  could  easily  be  got-  rid  of  when  he  had 
served  his  turn. 

Accordingly,  with  all  the  strength  he  could  muster  —  a 
troop  of  250  free  lances,  Germans  and  Burgundians,  the 
same  number  of  infantry  from  Tuscany,  with  fifty  young 
men  of  good  families  in  Perugia  —  a  very  tolerable  army 
for  the  time  —  and  the  two  young  Provencals,  along  with 
other  youths  to  whom  he  had  promised  various  offices,  the 
new  Senator  set  out  for  Rome.  He  was  now  a  legal  official, 
with  all  the  strength  of  the  Pope  and  constituted  authority 
behind  him;  not  a  penny  of  money  it  is  true  from  the 
Legate,  and  only  those  four  thousand  florins  in  his  treasury : 
but  with  all  the  taxes  and  offerings  in  Rome  in  front  of  him, 
and  the  highest  promise  of  success.  It  was  a  very  different 
beginning  from  that  of  seven  years  ago,  when  young,  penni- 
less, disinterested,  with  no  grandeur  to  keep  up,  and  no 
soldiers  to  pay,  he  had  been  borne  by  the  shouting  populace 
to  the  Capitol  to  an  unlimited  and  impossible  empire.  He 
was  now  a  sober  man,  experienced  in  the  world,  forty,  and 
trained  by  the  intercourse  of  courts,  in  other  ways  than 
those  of  his  youth.  He  had  now  been  taught  how  to  scheme 


492      THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.    [CH.  v. 

and  plot,  to  cajole  and  flatter,  to  play  one  party  against 
another,  and  change  his  plans  to  suit  his  circumstances.  So 
far  as  we  know,  he  had  no  motive  that  could  be  called 
bad,  except  that  of  achieving  the  splendour  he  loved,  and 
surrounding  himself  with  the  paraphernalia  of  greatness. 
The  devil  surely  never  before  used  so  small  a  bribe  to  cor- 
rupt a  nature  full  of  so  many  fine  things.  He  meant  to 
establish  the  Buono  Stato,  probably  as  sincerely  as  of  old. 
He  had  learned  that  he  could  not  put  forth  the  same  un- 
limited pretensions.  The  making  of  emperors  and  sway  of 
the  world  had  to  be  resigned ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  did  not  mean  to  carry  out  in  his  new  reign  the  high 
designs  for  his  city,  and  for  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the 
surrounding  country,  which  he  had  so  triumphantly  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  for  that  one  happy  and  triumphant  moment 
in  his  youth. 


TOMB   OF  CECILIA  METELLA 


CHAPTER   VI. 


THE    END    OF    THE    TRAGEDY. 

IT  was  in  the  beginning  of  August  1354  that  Eienzi  re- 
turned to  Rome.  Great  preparations  had  been  made 
for  his  reception.  The  municipal  guards,  with  all  the  cav- 
alry that  were  in  Rome,  went  out  as  far-  as  Monte  Mario  to 
meet  him,  with  branches  of  olive  in  their  hands,  "  in  sign  of 
victory  and  peace.  The  people  were  as  joyful  as  if  he  had 
been  Scipio  Africanus,"  our  biographer  says.  He  came  in 
by  the  gate  of  the  Castello,  near  St.  Angelo,  and  went 
thence  direct  to  the  centre  of  the  city,  through  streets 
adorned  with  triumphal  arches,  hung  with  tapestry,  resound- 
ing with  acclamations. 

493 


494  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

"  Great  was  the  delight  and  fervour  of  the  people.  With  all  these 
honours  they  led  him  to  the  Palazzo  of  the  Capitol.  There  he  made 
them  a  beautiful  and  eloquent  speech,  in  which  he  said  that  for  seven 
years  he  had  been  absent  from  his  house,  like  Nebuchadnezzar ;  but 
by  the  power  of  God  he  had  returned  to  his  seat  and  was  Senator  by 
the  appointment  of  the  Pope.  He  added  that  he  meant  to  rectify 
everything  and  raise  up  the  condition  of  Rome.  The  rejoicing  of  the 
Romans  was  as  great  as  was  that  of  the  Jews  when  Jesus  Christ 
entered  Jerusalem  riding  upon  an  ass.  They  all  honoured  him,  hang- 
ing out  draperies  and  olive  branches,  and  singing  '  Blessed  is  he  that 
cometh.'  When  all  was  over  they  returned  to  their  homes  and  left 
him  alone  with  his  followers  in  the  Piazza.  No  one  offered  him  so 
much  as  a  poor  repast.  The  following  day  Cola  di  Rienzi  received 
several  ambassadors  from  the  surrounding  country.  Deh  !  how  well 
he  answered.  He  gave  replies  and  promises  on  every  side.  The 
barons  remained  on  the  watch,  taking  no  part.  The  tumult  of  the 
triumph  was  great.  Never  had  there  been  so  much  pomp.  The  in- 
fantry lined  the  streets.  It  seemed  as  if  he  meant  to  govern  in  the 
way  of  the  tyrants.  Most  of  the  goods  he  had  forfeited  were  restored 
to  him.  He  sent  out  letters  to  all  the  States  to  declare  his  happy 
return,  and  he  desired  that  every  one  should  prepare  for  the  Buono 
Stato.  This  man  was  greatly  changed  from  his  former  ways.  It  had 
been  his  habit  to  be  sober,  temperate,  abstinent.  Now  he  'became  an 
excessive  drinker,  and  consumed  much  wine.  And  he  became  large 
and  gross  in  his  person.  He  had  a  paunch  like  a  tun,  triumphal,  like 
an  Abbate  Asinico.  He  was  full  of  flesh,  red,  with  a  long  beard. 
His  countenance  was  changed,  his  eyes  were  as  if  they  were  inflamed 
—  sometimes  they  were  red  as  blood." 

This  uncompromising  picture  of  a  man  whom  adversity 
had  not  improved  but  deteriorated,  is  very  broad  and 
coarse  with  those  personalities  which  the  mob  loves.  Yet 
his  biographer  does  not  seem  to  have  been  hostile  to  • 
Eienzi.  He  goes  on  to  describe  how  the  new  senator  on  the 
fourth  day  after  his  arrival  sent  a  summons  to  all  the  barons 
to  present  themselves  before  him,  and  among  others  he  sum- 
moned Stefanello  Colonna  who  had  been  a  child  at  the  time 
of  the  dreadful  rout  of  San  Lorenzo,  but  was  now  head  of 
the  house,  his  noble  old  heart-broken  grandfather  being  by 
this  time  happily  dead.  It  was  scarcely  likely  that  the 
third  Stefano  should  receive  that  summons  in  friendship. 
He  seized  the  two  messengers  and  threw  them  into  prison, 
then  after  a  time  had  the  teeth  of  one  drawn,  an  insulting 
infliction,  and  despatched  the  other  to  Rome  to  demand  a 


vi.]  THE  END  OF   THE  TRAGEDY.  495 

ransom  for  them :  following  this  up  by  a  great  raid  upon 
the  surrounding  country,  in  which  his  lightly  armed  and 
flying  forces  "lifted"  the  cattle  of  the  Romans  as  might 
have  been  done  by  the  emissaries  of  a  Highland  chief. 
Eienzi  seems  to  have  rushed  to  arms,  collecting  a  great  mis- 
cellaneous gathering,  "  some  armed,  some  without  arms,  ac- 
cording as  time  permitted  "  to  recover  the  cattle.  But  they 
were  misled  by  an  artifice  of  the  most  transparent  descrip- 
tion, and  stumbled  on  as  far  as  Tivoli  without  finding  any 
opponent.  Here  he  was  stopped  by  the  mercenaries  clam- 
ouring for  their  pay,  which  he  adroitly  obtained  from  the 
two  young  commanders,  Arimbaldo  and  Bettrom,  by  repre- 
senting to  them  that  when  such  a  difficulty  arose  in  classi- 
cal times  it  was  met  by  the  chief  citizens  who  immediately 
subscribed  what  was  necessary.  The  apparently  simple- 
minded  young  men  (Bettrom  or  Bertram  having  apparently 
got  over  his  ill-temper)  gave  him  500  florins  each,  and  so 
the  trouble  was  got  over  for  the  moment,  and  the  march 
towards  Palestrina  was  resumed.  But  the  expedition  was 
quite  futile,  neither  Rienzi  nor  the  young  men  whom  he 
had  placed  at  the  head  of  affairs  knowing  much  about  the 
science  of  war.  There  were  dissensions  in  the  camp,  the 
men  of  Velletri  having  a  feud  with  those  of  Tivoli ;  and 
the  picture  which  the  biographer  affords  us  of  the  leaders 
looking  on,  seeing  a  train  of  cattle  and  provision  waggons 
entering  the  town  which  they  were  by  way  of  besieging, 
and  inquiring  innocently  what  it  was,  gives  the  most  vivid 
impression  of  the  ignorance  and  helplessness  which  reigned 
in  the  attacking  party :  while  Stefanello  Colonna,  to  the 
manner  born,  surrounded  by  old  warriors  and  fighting  for 
his  life,  defended  his  old  towers  with  skill  as  well  as 
desperation. 

While  the  Romans  thus  lost  their  chances  of  victory 
and  occupied  themselves  with  that  destruction  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  which  was  the  first  word  of  warfare  in 


496  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

those  days  —  the  peasants  and  the  villages  always  suffer- 
ing, whoever  might  escape  —  there  was  news  brought  to 
Rienzi' s  camp  of  the  arrival  in  Rome  of  the  terrible  Fra 
Moreale  himself,  who  had  arrived  in  all  confidence,  with 
but  a  small  party  in  his  train,  in  the  city  for  which  his 
brothers  were  fighting  and  in  which  his  money  formed  the 
only  treasury  of  war.  He  was  a  bold  man  and  used  to 
danger ;  but  it  did  not  seem  that  any  idea  of  danger  had 
occurred  to  him.  There  had  been  whispers  among  the 
mercenaries  that  the  great  Captain  entertained  no  amiable 
feelings  towards  the  Senator  who  had  beguiled  his  young 
brothers  into  this  dubious  warfare :  and  this  report  would 
seem  to  have  come  to  Eienzi's  ears :  but  that  Fra  Moreale 
stood  in  any  danger  from  Rienzi  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  any  spectator. 

One  pauses  here  with  a  wondering  inquiry  what  were  his 
motives  at  this  crisis  of  his  life.  Were  they  simply  those 
of  the  ordinary  and  vulgar  villain,  "Let  us  kill  him  that 
the  inheritance  may  be  ours "  ?  —  was  he  terrified  by  the 
prospect  of  the  inquiries  which  the  experienced  man  of 
war  would  certainly  make  as  to  the  manner  in  which  his 
brothers  had  been  treated  by  the  leader  who  had  attained 
such  absolute  power  over  them  ?  or  is  it  possible  that  the 
patriotism,  the  enthusiasm  for  Italy,  the  high  regard  for 
the  common  weal  which  had  once  existed  in  the  bosom  of 
Cola  di  Rienzi  flashed  up  now  in  his  mind,  in  one  last  and 
tremendous  flame  of  righteous  wrath  ?  No  one  perhaps 
so  dangerous  to  the  permanent  freedom  and  well-being  of 
Italy  existed  as  this  Provencal  with  his  great  army,  which 
held  allegiance  to  no  leader  but  himself  —  without  country, 
without  creed  or  scruple  —  which  he  led  about  at  his  pleas- 
ure, flinging  it  now  into  one,  now  into  the  other  scale. 
The  Grande  Compagnia  was  the  terror  of  the  whole  Conti- 
nent. Except  that  it  was  certain  to  bring  disaster  wherever 
it  went,  its  movements  were  never  to  be  calculated  upon. 


vi.].  THE   END   OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  497 

Whatever  fluctuations  there  might  be  in  state  or  city,  this 
roving  army  was  always  on  the  side  of  evil ;  it  lived  by 
fighting  and  disaster  alone;  and  to  drive  it  out  of  the 
country,  out  of  the  world  if  possible,  would  have  been  the 
most  true  and  noble  act  of  deliverance  which  could  have 
been  accomplished.  Was  this  the  purpose  that  flashed 
into  Eienzi's  eyes  when  he  heard  that  the  head  of  this 
terror,  the  great  brigand  chief  and  captain,  had  trusted 
himself  within  the  walls  of  Eome  ?  With  the  philosophy 
of  compromise  which  rules  among  us,  and  which  forbids 
us  to  allow  an  uncomplicated  motive  in  any  man,  we  dare 
hardly  say  or  even  surmise  that  this  was  so ;  but  we  may 
allow  some  room  for  the  mingled  motives  which  are  the 
pet  theory  of  our  age,  and  yet  believe  that  something  per- 
haps of  this  nobler  impulse  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Eoman 
Senator,  who,  notwithstanding  his  decadence  and  his  down- 
fall, was  still  the  same  man  who  by  sheer  enthusiasm  and 
generous  wrath,  without  a  blow  struck,  had  once  driven  its 
petty  tyrants  out  of  the  city.  Whatever  may  be  the  judg- 
ment of  the  reader  in  this  respect,  it  is  clear  that  Eienzi 
dropped  the  siege  of  Palestrina  when  he  heard  of  Era 
Moreale's  arrival,  as  a  dog  drops  a  bone  or  an  infant  his 
toys,  and  hastened  to  Rome ;  while  his  army  melted  away 
as  was  usual  in  such  wars,  each  band  to  its  own  country. 
Eight  days  had  been  passed  before  Palestrina,  and  the 
country  round  was  completely  devastated :  but  no  effectual 
advantage  had  been  gained  when  this  sudden  change  of 
purpose  took  place. 

As  soon  as  Eienzi  arrived  in  Eome  he  caused  Era  Moreale 
to  be  arrested,  and  placed  him  with  his  brothers  in  the  prison 
of  the  Capitol,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  all;  but  espe- 
cially to  the  surprise  of  the  great  Captain,  who  thought  it 
at  first  a  mere  expedient  for  extorting  money,  and  comforted 
by  this  explanation  the  unfortunate  brothers  for  whose  sake 
he  had  placed  himself  in  the  snare.  "  Do  not  trouble  your- 

2  K 


498  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

selves/7  lie  said,  "  let  me  manage  this  affair.  He  shall  have 
ten  thousand,  twenty  thousand  florins,  money  and  people  as 
much  as  he  pleases."  Then  answered  the  brothers,  "  Deh ! 
do  so,  in  the  name  of  God."  They  perhaps  knew  their 
Eienzi  by  this  time,  young  as  they  were,  and  foolish  as  they 
had  been,  better  than  their  elder  and  superior.  And  no 
doubt  Eienzi  might  have*made  excellent  terms  for  himself, 
perhaps  even  for  Koine;  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  enter- 
tained such  an  idea  for  a  moment.  When  the  Tribune  set 
his  foot  within  the  gates  of  the  city  the  Condottiere's  fate 
was  sealed.  The  biographer  gives  us  a  most  curious  picture 
of  the  agitation  and  surprise  of  this  man  in  face  of  his  fate. 
When  he  was  brought  to  the  torture  (menato  a  lo  tormento) 
he  cried  out  in  a  consternation  which  is  wild  with  foregone 
conclusions.  "  I  told  you  what  your  rustic  villain  was,"  he 
exclaimed,  as  if  still  carrying  on  that  discussion  with  the 
foolish  young  brothers.  "  He  is  going  to  put  me  to  the  tor- 
ment !  Does  he  not  know  that  I  am  a  knight  ?  Was  there 
ever  such  a  clown  ?  "  Thus  storming,  astonished,  incredu- 
lous of  such  a  possibility,  yet  eager  to  say  that  he  had  fore- 
seen it,  the  dismayed  Captain  was  alzato,  pulled  up  presum- 
ably by  his  hands  as  was  one  manner  of  torture,  all  the  time 
murmuring  and  crying  in  his  beard,  half-mad  and  incoherent 
in  the  unexpected  catastrophe.  "I  am  Captain  of  the  Great 
Company,"  he  cried;  "and  being  a  knight  I  ought  to  be 
nonoured.  I  have  put  the  cities  of  Tuscany  to  ransom.  I 
have  laid  taxes  on  them.  I  have  overthrown  principalities 
and  taken  the  people  captive."  While  he  babbled  thus  in 
his  first  agony  of  astonishment  the  shadow  of  death  closed 
upon  Moreale,  and  the  character  of  his  utterances  changed. 
He  began  to  perceive  that  it  was  all  real,  and  that  Kienzi 
had  now  gone  too  far  to  be  won  by  money  or  promises. 
When  he  was  taken  back  to  the  prison  which  his  brothers 
shared  he  told  them  with  more  dignity,  that  he  knew  he 
was  about  to  die.  "  Gentle  brothers,  be  not  afraid,"  he  said. 


vi.]  THE  END  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  499 

"  You  are  young ;  you  have  not  felt  misfortune.  You  shall 
not  die,  but  I  shall  die.  My  life  has  always  been  full  of 
trouble."  (He  was  a  man  of  sentiment,  and  a  poet  in  his 
way,  as  well  as  a  soldier  of  fortune.)  "  It  was  a  trouble  to 
me  to  live,  of  death  I  have  no  fear.  I  am  glad  to  die  where 
died  the  blessed  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  This  misadventure 
is  thy  fault,  Arimbaldo ;  it  is  you  who  have  led  me  into  this 
labyrinth ;  but  do  not  blame  yourself  or  mourn  for  me,  for 
I  die  willingly.  I  am  a  man :  I  have  been  betrayed  like 
other  men.  By  heaven,.  I  was  deceived !  But  God  will 
have  mercy  upon  me,  I  have  no  doubt,  because  I  came  here 
with  a  good  intention."  These  piteous  words,  full  to  the 
last  of  astonishment,  form  a  sort  of  soliloquy  which  runs 
on,  broken,  to  the  very  foot  of  the  Lion  upon  the  great 
stairs,  where  he  was  led  to  die,  amid  the  stormy  ringing  of 
the  great  bell  and  rushing  of  the  people,  half  exultant  and 
half  terrified,  who  came  from  all  quarters  to  see  this  great 
and  terrible  act  of  that  justice  to  which  the  city  in  her  first 
fervour  had  pledged  herself.  "Oh,  Eomans,  are  ye  consent- 
ing to  my  death  ?  "  he  cried.  "  I  never  did  you  harm  ;  but 
because  of  your  poverty  and  my  wealth  I  must  die."  The 
chronicler  goes  on  reporting  the  last  words  with  fascination, 
as  if  he  could  not  refrain.  There  is  a  wildness  in  them, 
of  wonder  and  amazement,  to  the  last  moment.  "  I  am  not 
well  placed,"  he  murmured,  non  sto  bene,  evidently  meaning, 
I  am  not  properly  placed  for  the  blow :  as  he  seems  to  have 
changed  his  position  several  times,  kneeling  down  and  rising 
again.  He  then  kissed  the  knife  and  said,  "  God  save  thee, 
holy  justice,"  and  making  another  round  knelt  down  again. 
The  narrative  is  full  of  life  and  pity ;  the  great  soldier  all 
bewildered,  his  brain  failing,  overwhelmed  with  dolorous 
surprise,  seeking  the  right  spot  to  die  in.  "  This  excellent 
man  (honestis  probisque  viris,  in  the  Latin  version),  Fra 
Moreale,  whose  fame  is  in  all  Italy  for  strength  and  glory, 
was  buried  in  the  Church  of  the  Ara  Coeli,"  says  our  chroni- 


500  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.         [CHAP. 

cler.  His  execution  took  place  on  the  spot  where  the  Lion 
still  stands  on  the  left  hand  of  the  great  stairs.  There  Era 
Moreale  wandered  in  his  distraction  to  find  a  comfortable 
place  for  the  last  blow.  The  association  is  grim  enough, 
and  others  yet  more  appalling  were  soon  to  gather  there. 

This  perhaps  was  the  only  step  of  his  life  in  which  Eienzi 
had  the  approbation  of  all.  The  Pope  displayed  his  approval 
in  the  most  practical  way  by  confiscating  all  Era  Moreale's 
wealth,  of  which  60,000  gold  florins  were  distributed  among 
those  who  had  suffered  by  him.  The  funds  which  he  had 
in  various  cities  were  also  seized,  though  we  are  told  that 
of  those  in  Borne  Bienzi  had  but  a  small  part,  a  certain 
notary  having  managed,  by  what  means  we  are  not  told,  to 
secure  the  larger  sum.  By  the  interposition  of  the  Legate, 
the  foolish  Arimbaldo,  whom  BienziV  fair  words  had  so  bit- 
terly deceived,  was  discharged  from  his  prison  and  permitted 
to  leave  Borne,  but  the  younger  brother  Bettrom,  or  Bertram, 
who,  so  far  as  we  see,  was  never  a  partisan  of  Bienzi,  was 
left  behind ;  and  though  his  presence  is  noted  at  another 
tragic  moment,  we  do  not  hear  what  became  of  him  eventu- 
ally. With  the  money  he  received  Rienzi  made  haste  to  pay 
his  soldiers  and  to  renew  the  war.  He  was  so  fortunate  as 
to  secure  the  services  of  a  noble  and  valiant  captain,  of 
whom  the  free  lances  declared  that  they  had  never  served 
under  so  brave  a  man :  and  whose  name  is  recorded  as 
Eiccardo  Imprennante  degli  Annibaldi  —  Eichard  the  .enter- 
prising, perhaps  —  and  the  war  was  pursued  with  vigour 
under  him.  Within  Eome  things  did  not  go  quite  so  well. 
Eienzi  had  to  explain  his  conduct  in  respect  to  Fra  Moreale 
to  his  own  councillors.  "  Sirs,"  he  said,  "  do  not  be  disturbed 
by  the  death  of  this  man;  he  was  the  worst  man  in  the 
world.  He  has  robbed  churches  and  towns ;  he  has  mur- 
dered both  men  and  women ;  two  thousand  depraved  women 
followed  him  about.  He  came  to  disturb  our  state,  not  to 
help  it,  meaning  to  make  himself  the  lord  of  it.  And  this 


vi.]  THE  END  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  501 

is  why  we  have  condemned  that  false  man.  His  money ,  his 
horses,  and  his  arms  we  shall  take  for  our  soldiers."  We 
scarcely  see  the  eloquence  for  which  Rienzi  was  famed  in 
these  succinct  and  staccato  sentences  in  which  his  biog- 
rapher reports  him;  but  this  was  our  chronicler's  own 
style,  and  they  are  at  least  vigorous  and  to  the  point. 

"  By  these  words  the  Romans  were  partly  quieted,"  we 
are  told,  and  the  course  of  the  history  went  on.  The  siege 
of  Palestrina  went  well,  and  garrisons  were  placed  in  sev- 
eral of  the  surrounding  towns,  while  Eienzi  held  the  control 
of  everything  in  his  hands.  Some  of  his  troops  withdrew 
from  his  service,  probably  because  of  Fra  Moreale ;  but 
others  came  —  archers  in  great  numbers,  and  three  hundred 
horsemen. 

"  He  maintained  his  place  at  the  Capitol  in  order  to  provide  for 
everything.  Many  were  the  cares.  He  had  to  procure  money  to  pay 
the  soldiers.  He  restricted  himself  in  every  expense  ;  every  penny 
was  for  the  army.  Such  a  man  was  never  seen ;  alone  he  bore  the 
cares  of  all  the  Romans.  He  stood  in  the  Capitol  arranging  that 
which  the  leaders  in  their  places  afterwards  carried  out.  He  gave  the 
orders  and  settled  everything,  and  it  was  done  —  the  closing  of  the 
roads,  the  times  of  attack,  the  taking  of  men  and  spies.  It  was  never 
ending.  His  officers  were  neither  slow  nor  cold,  but  no  one  did  much 
except  the  hero  Riccardo,  who  night  and  day  weakened  the  Colonnese. 
Stefanello  and  his  Colonnas,  and  Palestrina  consumed  away.  The 
war  was  coming  to  a  good  end." 

To  do  all  this,  however,  the  money  of  Moreale  was  not 
enough.  Bienzi  had  to  impose  a  tax  upon  wine,  and  to 
raise  that  upon  salt,  which  the  citizens  resented.  Every- 
thing was  for  the  soldiers.  His  own  expenses  were  much 
restricted,  and  he  seemed  to  expect  that  the  citizens  would 
follow  his  example.  One  of  them,  a  certain  Pandolfuccio  di 
Guido,  Kienzi  seized  and  beheaded  without  any  apparent 
reason.  He  was  said  to  have  desired  to  make  himself  lord 
over  the  people,  the  chronicler  says.  This  arbitrary  step 
seems  to  have  caused  great  alarm.  "  The  Romans  were  like 
sheep,  and  they  were  afraid  of  the  Tribune  as  of  a  demon." 


502  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

By  this  time  Eienzi  once  more  began  to  show  signs  of 
that  confusion  of  mind  which  we  call  losing  the  head  —  a 
confusion  of  irritation  and  changeableness,  the  resolution 
of  to-day  giving  place  to  another  to-morrow  —  and  the  giddi- 
ness of  approaching  downfall  seized  upon  every  faculty.  As 
had  happened  on  the  former  occasion,  this  dizziness  of  doom 
caught  him  when  all  was  going  well.  He  displaced  his 
Captain,  who  was  carrying  on  the  siege  of  Palestrina  with 
so  much  vigour  .and  success,  for  no  apparent  reason,  and 
appointed  other  leaders  whose  names  even  the  biographer 
does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  give.  The  National  Guard 

—  if  we  may  so  call  them  —  fifty  for  each  Eione  —  who 
were  the  sole  guardians  of  Rome,  were  kept  without  pay, 
while  every  penny  that  could  be  squeezed  from  the  people 
was  sent  to  the  army.     These  things  raised  each  a  new 
enemy  to  the  Tribune,  the  Senator,  once  so  beloved,  who 
now  for  the  second  time,  and  more  completely  than  before, 
had  proved  himself  incapable  of  the  task  which  he  had 
taken  upon  him.     It  was  on  the  1st  of  August,  1354,  that 
he  had   entered  Rome  with  a  rejoicing  escort  of   all   its 
cavalry  and  principal  inhabitants  —  with  waving  flags  and 
olive  branches,  and  a  throng  that  filled  all  the  streets,  the 
Popolo  itself  shouting  and  acclaiming  —  and  had  been  led 
to  the  Piazza  of  the  Ara  Cosli,  at  the  foot  of  the  great  stairs 
of  the  Capitol.     On  the  last  day  of  that  month,  a  sinister 
and  tragic  assembly,  gathered  together  by  the  sound  of  the 
great  bell,  thronged  once  more  to  the  foot  of  these  stairs,  to 
see  the  great  soldier,  the  robber  knight,  the  terror  of  Italy, 
executed.     And  it  was  still  only  September,  the  Vita  says 

—  though  other  accounts  throw  the  catastrophe  a  month 
later  —  when  the  last  day  of  Rienzi  himself  came.      We 
know  nothing  of  the  immediate  causes  of  the  rising,  nor 
who  were  its  leaders.     But  Rome  was  in  so  parlous  a  state, 
seething  with  so  many  volcanic  elements,  that  it  must  have 
been  impossible  to  predict  from  morning  to  morning  what 


\ 


ANCIENT,   MEDIAEVAL,   AND  MODERN   ROME. 


To  face  page  502. 


vi.]  THE   END  OF   THE   TRAGEDY.  505 

might  happen.  What  did  happen  looks  like  a  sudden  out- 
burst, spontaneous  and  unpremeditated ;  but  no  doubt,  from 
various  circumstances  which  followed,  the  Colonna  had  a 
hand  in  it,  who  ever  since  the  day  of  San  Lorenzo  had  been 
Cola's  bitterest  enemies.  This  is  how  his  biographer  tells 
the  tale : 

"  It  was  the  month  of  September,  the  eighth  day.  In  the  morning 
Cola  di  Rienzi  lay  in  his  bed,  having  washed  his  face  with  Greek  wine 
(no  doubt  a  reference  to  his  supposed  habits).  Suddenly  voices  were 
heard  shouting  Viva  lo  Popolo  !  Viva  lo  Popolo  !  At  this  sound  the 
people  in  the  streets  began  to  run  here  and  there.  The  sound  increased, 
the  crowd  grew.  At  the  cross  in  the  market  they  were  joined  by  armed 
men  who  came  from  St.  Angelo  and  the  Ripa,  and  from  the  Colonna 
quarter  and  the  Trevi.  As  they  joined,  their  cry  was  changed  into  this, 
Death  to  the  traitor,  Cola  di  Rienzi,  death  !  Among  them  appeared  the 
youths  who  had  been  put  in  his  lists  for  the  conscription.  They  rushed 
towards  the  palace  of  the  Capitol  with  an  innumerable  throng  of  men, 
women  and  children,  throwing  stones,  making  a  great  clamour,  encir- 
cling the  palace  on  every  side  before  and  behind,  and  shouting,  '  Death 
to  the  traitor  who  has  inflicted  the  taxes !  Death  to  him  ! '  Terrible 
was  the  fury  of  them.  The  Tribune  made  no  defence  against  them. 
He  did  not  sound  the  tocsin.  He  said  to  himself,  '  They  cry  Viva  lo 
Popolo,  and  so  do  we.  We  are  here  to  exalt  the  people.  I  have  written 
to  my  soldiers.  My  letter  of  confirmation  has  come  from  the  Pope. 
All  .that  is  wanted  is  to  publish  it  in  the  Council.'  But  when  he  saw 
at  the  last  that  the  thing  was  turning  badly  he  began  to  be  alarmed, 
especially  as  he  perceived  that  he  was  abandoned  by  every  living  soul 
of  those  who  usually  occupied  the  Capitol.  Judges,  notaries,  guards  — 
all  had  fled  to  save  their  own  skin.  Only  three  persons  remained  with 
him  —  one  of  whom  was  Locciolo  Pelliciaro,  his  kinsman." 

This  was  the  terrible  awaking  of  the  doomed  man  — 
without  preparation,  without  the  sound  of  a  bell,  or  any 
of  the  usual  warnings,  roused  from  his  day-dream  of  idle 
thoughts,  his  Greek  wine,  the  indulgences  to  which  he 
had  accustomed  himself,  in  his  vain  self-confidence.  He 
had  no  home  on  the  heights  of  that  Capitol  to  which  he  had 
returned  with  such  triumph.  If  his  son  Lorenzo  was  dead 
or  living  we  do  not  hear.  His  wife  had  entered  one  of  the 
convents  of  the  Poor  Clares,  when  he  was  wandering  in  the 
Apennines,  and  was  far  from  him.  There  is  not  a  word  of 
any  one  who  loved  him,  unless  it  might  chance  to  be  the 


506  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

poor  relation  who  stood  by  him,  Locciolo,  the  furrier,  per- 
haps kept  about  him  to  look  after  his  robes  of  minever,  the 
royal  fur.  The  cry  that  now  surged  round  the  ill-secured 
and  half-ruinous  palace  would  seem  to  have  been  indistin- 
guishable to  him,  even  when  the  hoarse  roar  came  so  near, 
like  the  dashing  of  a  horrible  wave  round  the  walls :  Viva 
lo  Popolo!  that  was  one  thing.  With  his  belle  parole  he 
could  have  easily  turned  that  to  his  advantage,  shouting  it 
too.  What  else  was  he  there  for  but  to  glorify  the  people  ? 
But  the  terrible  thunder  of  sound  took  another  tone,  a 
longer  cry,  requiring  a  deeper  breath — Death  to  the  traitor: 
—  these  are  not  words  a  man  can  long  mistake.  Something 
had  to  be  done  —  he  knew  not  what.  In  that  equality  of 
misery  which  makes  a  man  acquainted  with  such  strange 
bedfellows,  the  Senator  turned  to  the  three  humble  retainers 
who  trembled  round  him,  and  asked  their  advice.  "  By  my 
faith,  the  thing  cannot  go  like  this,"  he  said.  It  would 
appear  that  some  one  advised  him  to  face  the  crowd :  for  he 
dressed  himself  in  his  costume  as  a  knight,  took  the  banner 
of  the  people  in  his  hand,  and  went  out  upon  the  balcony : 

"  He  extended  his  hand,  making  a  sign  that  all  were  to  be  silent,  and 
that  he  was  about  to  speak.  Without  doubt  if  they  had  listened  to  him 
he  would  have  broken  their  will  and  changed  their  opinion.  But  the 
Romans  would  not  listen ;  they  were  as  swine  ;  they  threw  stones  and 
aimed  arrows  at  him,  and  some  ran  with  fire  to  set  light  to  the  door. 
So  many  were  the  arrows  shot  at  him  that  he  could  not  remain  on  the 
balcony.  Then  he  took  the  Gonfalone  and  spread  out  the  standard, 
and  with  both  his  hands  pointed  to  the  letters  of  gold,  the  arms  of  the 
citizens  of  Rome  —  almost  as  if  he  said  '  You  will  not  let  me  speak ; 
but  I  am  a  citizen  and  a  man  of  the  people  like  you.  I  love  you  ;  and 
if  you  kill  me,  you  will  kill  yourselves  who  are  Romans.'  But  he 
could  not  continue  in  this  position,  for  the  people,  without  intellect, 
grew  worse  and  worse.  '  Death  to  the  traitor,'  they  cried." 

A  great  confusion  was  in  the  mind  of  the  unfortunate 
Tribune.  He  could  no  longer  keep  his  place  in  the  balcony, 
and  the  rioters  had  set  fire  to  the  great  door  below,  which 
began  to  burn.  If  he  escaped  into  the  room  above,  it  was 
the  prison  of  Bertram  of  Narbonne,  the  brother  of  Moreale, 


vi.]  THE  END   OF   THE   TRAGEDY.  507 

who  would  have  killed  him.  In  this  dreadful  strait  Rienzi 
had  himself  let  down  by  sheets  knotted  together  into  the 
court  behind,  encircled  by  the  walls  of  the  prison.  Even 
here  treachery  pursued  him,  for  Locciolo,  his  kinsman,  ran 
out  to  the  balcony,  arid  with  signs  and  cries  informed  the 
crowd  that  he  had  gone  away  behind,  and  was  escaping  by 
the  other  side.  He  it  was,  says  the  chronicler,  who  killed 
Rienzi ;  for  he  first  aided  him  in  his  descent  and  then  be- 
trayed him.  For  one  desperate  moment  of  indecision  the 
fallen  Tribune  held  a  last  discussion  with  himself  in  the 
court  of  the  prison.  Should  he  still  go  forth  in  his  knight's 
dress,  armed  and  with  his  sword  in  his  hand,  and  die  there 
with  dignity,  "like  a  magnificent  person,"  in  the  sight  of 
all  men  ?  But  life  was  still  sweet.  He  threw  off  his  sur- 
coat,  cut  his  beard  and  begrimed  his  face  —  then  going  into 
the  porter's  lodge,  he  found  a  peasant's  coat  which  he  put 
on,  and  seizing  a  covering  from  the  bed,  threw  it  over  him, 
as  if  the  pillage  of  the  Palazzo  had  begun,  and  sallied  forth. 
He  struggled  through  the  burning  as  best  he  could,  and 
came  through  it  untouched  by  the  fire,  speaking  like  a  coun- 
tryman, and  crying  "Up!  Up!  a  glui,  traditore!  As  he 
passed  the  last  door  one  of  the  crowd  accosted  him  roughly, 
and  pushed  back  the  article  011  his  head,  which  would  seem  to 
have  been  a  duvet,  or  heavy  quilt :  upon  which  the  splen- 
dour of  the  bracelet  he  wore  on  his  wrist  became  visible,  and 
he  was  recognised.  He  was  immediately  seized,  not  with 
any  violence  at  first,  and  taken  down  the  great  stair  to  the 
foot  of  the  Lion,  where  the  sentences  were  usually  read. 
When  he  reached  that  spot,  "  a  silence  was  made  "  (fo  fatto 
uno  silentio).  "No  man,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  showed  any 
desire  to  touch  him.  He  stood  there  for  about  an  hour,  his 
beard  cut,  his  face  black  like  a  furnace-man,  in  a  tunic  of 
green  silk,  and  yellow  hose  like  a  baron."  In  the  silence, 
as  he  stood  there,  during  that  awful  hour,  he  turned  his 
head  from  side  to  side,  "  looking  here  and  there."  He  does 


508  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

not  seem  to  have  made  any  attempt  to  speak,  but  bewildered 
in  the  collapse  of  his  being,  pitifully  contemplated  the  horri- 
ble crowd,  glaring  at  him,  no  man  daring  to  strike  the  first 
blow.  At  last  a  follower  of  his  own,  one  of  the  leaders  of 
the  mob,  made  a  thrust  with  his  sword  —  and  immediately 
a  dozen  others  followed.  He  died  at  the  first  stroke,  his 
biographer  tells  us,  and  felt  no  pain.  The  whole  dreadful 
scene  passed  in  silence  —  "  not  a  word  was  said,"  the  piteous, 
eager  head,  looking  here  and  there,  fell,  and  all  was  over. 
And  the  roar  of  the  dreadful  crowd  burst  forth  again. 

The  still  more  horrible  details  that  follow  need  not  be 
here  given.  The  unfortunate  had  grown  fat  in  the  luxury 
of  these  latter  days.  Grasso  era  liorriblimente.  Bianco 
come  latte  ensanguinato,  says  the  chronicler :  and  again  he 
places  before  us,  as  at  San  Lorenzo  seven  years  before,  the 
white  figure  lying  on  the  pavement,  the  red  of  the  blood. 
It  was  dragged  along  the  streets  to  the  Colonna  quarter ;  it 
was  hung  up  to  a  balcony ;  finally  the  headless  body,  after 
all  these  dishonours,  was  taken  to  an  open  place  before  the 
Mausoleum  of  Augustus,  and  burned  by  the  Jews.  Why 
the  Jews  took  this  share  of  the  carnival  of  blood  we  are  not 
told.  It  had  never  been  said  that  Kienzi  was  hard  upon 
them ;  but  no  doubt  at  a  period  so  penniless  they  must  have 
had  their  full  share  of  the  taxes  and  payments  exacted 
from  all. 

There  is  no  moral  even,  to  this  tale,  except  the  well-worn 
moral  of  the  fickleness  of  the  populace  who  acclaim  a  leader 
one  moment,  and  kill  him  the  next ;  but  that  is  a  common- 
place and  a  worn-out  one.  If  there  were  ever  many  men 
likely  to  sin  in  that  way,  it  might  be  a  lesson  to  the  enthusiast 
thrusting  an  inexperienced  hand  into  the  web  of  fate,  to 
confuse  the  threads  with  which  the  destiny  of  a  country  is 
wrought,  without  knowing  either  the  pattern  or  the  meaning 
of  the  weaving.  He  began  with  what  we  have  every  reason 
for  believing  to  have  been  a  noble  and  generous  impulse  to 


vi.]  THE  END  OF   THE   TRAGEDY.  509 

save  his  people.  But  his  soul  was  not  capable  of  that  high 
emprise.  He  had  the  greatest  and  most  immediate  success 
ever  given  to  a  popular  leader.  The  power  to  change,  to 
mend,  to  make  over  again,  to  vindicate  and  to  carry  out  his 
ideal  was  given  him  in  the  fullest  measure.  For  a  time  it 
seemed  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  that  Cola  di 
Bienzi,  the  son  of  the  wine-shop,  the  child  of  the  people, 
might  not  do.  But  then  he  fell ;  the  promise  faded  into  dead 
ashes,  the  impulse  which  was  inspiration  breathed  out  and 
died  away.  Inspiration  was  all  he  had,  neither  knowledge 
nor  the  noble  sense  and  understanding  which  might  have  been 
a  substitute  for  it ;  and  when  the  thin  fire  blazed  up  like  the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  it  blazed  away  again  and  left 
nothing  behind.  Had  he  perished  at  the  end  of  his  first 
reign,  had  he  been  slain  at  the  foot  of  the  Capitol,  as  Petrarch 
would  have  had  him,  his  story  would  have  been  a  perfect 
tragedy,  and  we  might  have  been  permitted  to  make  a  hero 
of  the  young  patriot,  standing  alone,  in  an  age  to  which 
patriotism  was  unknown.  But  the  postscript  of  his  second 
effort  destroys  the  epic.  It  is  all  miserable  self-seeking,  all 
squalid,  the  story  of  any  beggar  on  horseback,  any  vulgar 
adventurer.  Yet  the  silent  hour  when  he  stood  at  the  foot 
of  the  great  stairs,  the  horrible  mob  silent  before  him,  bridled 
by  that  mute  and  awful  despair,  incapable  of  striking  the 
final  blow,  is  one  of  the  most  intense  moments  of  human 
tragedy.  A  large  overgrown  man,  with  blackened  face  and 
the  rough  remnants  of  a  beard,  half  dressed,  speechless,  his 
head  turning  here  and  there  —  And  yet  no  one  dared  to 
take  that  step,  to  thrust  that  eager  sword,  for  nearly  an 
hour.  Perhaps  it  was  only  a  minute,  which  would  be  less 
unaccountable,  feeling  like  an  hour  to  every  looker  on  who 
was  there  and  stood  by. 

No  one  in  all  the  course  of  modern  Eoman  history  has  so 
illustrated  the  streets  and  ways  of  Kome  and  set  its  excited 
throngs  in  evidence,  and  made  the  great  bell  sound  in  our 


510 


THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.        [CH.  vi. 


very  ears,  a  stuormo,  and  disclosed  the  noise  of  the  rabble 
and  the  rule  of  the  nobles,  and  the  finery  of  the  gallants, 
with  so  real  and  tangible  an  effect.  The  episode  is  a  short 
one.  The  two  periods  of  Rienzi's  power  put  together  scarcely 
amount  to  eight  months ;  but  there  are  few  chapters  in  that 
history  which  is  always  so  turbulent,  yet  lacks  so  much  the 
charm  of  personal  story  and  adventure,  so  picturesque  and 
complete. 


LETTER  WRITER. 


BOOK  IV. 
THE   POPES   WHO   MADE   THE   CITY. 


PIAZZA  DEL  POPOLO. 


BOOK  IV. 
THE  POPES  WHO   MADE   THE   CITY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

MARTIN   V. — EUGENIUS    IV.  —  NICOLAS   V. 

IT  is  strange  to  leave  the  history  of  Kome  at  the  climax 
to  which  the  ablest  and  strongest  of  its  modern  masters 
had  brought  it,  when  it  was  the  home  of  the  highest  ambi- 
tion, and  the  loftiest  claims  in  the  world,  the  acknowledged 
head  of  one  of  the  two  powers  which  divided  that  world 
between  them,  and  claiming  a  supreme  visionary  authority 
over  the  other  also ;  and  to  take  up  that  story  again  (after 
such  a  romantic  episode  as  we  have  just  discussed)  when  its 
rulers  had  become  but  the  first  among  the  fighting  principal- 
ities of  Italy,  men  of  a  hundred  ambitions,  not  one  of  which 

2L  513 


514  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

was  spiritual,  carrying  on  their  visionary  sway  as  heads  of 
the  Church  as  a  matter  of  routine  merely,  but  reserving  all 
their  real  life  and  energy  for  the  perpetual  internecine  war- 
fare that  had  been  going  on  for  generations,  and  the  security 
of  their  personal  possessions.  From  Innocent  III.  to  such  a 
man  as  Eugenius  IV.,  still  and  always  fighting,  mixed  up 
with  all  the  struggles  of  the  Continent,  hiring  Condottieri, 
marshalling  troops,  with  his  whole  soul  in  the  warfare,  so 
continuous,  so  petty,  even  so  bloodless  so  far  as  the  actual 
armies  were  concerned  —  which  never  for  a  moment  ceased 
in  Italy  :  is  a  change  incalculable.  Let  us  judge  the  great 
Gregory  and  the  great  Innocent  as  we  may,  their  aim  and 
the  purpose  of  their  lives  were  among  the  greatest  that  have 
ever  been  conceived  by  man,  perhaps  the  highest  ideal  ever 
formed,  though  like  all  high  ideals  impossible,  so  long  as 
men  are  as  we  know  them,  and  those  who  choose  them  are 
as  helpless  in  the  matter  of  selecting  and  securing  the  best 
as  their  forefathers  were.  But  to  set  up  that  tribunal  on 
earth — that  shadow  and  representation  of  the  great  White 
Throne  hereafter  to  be  established  in  the  skies  —  in  order 
to  judge  righteous  judgment,  to  redress  wrongs,  to  neutral- 
ise the  sway  of  might  over  right  —  let  it  fail  ever  so  com- 
pletely, is  at  least  a  great  conception,  the  noblest  plan  at 
which  human  hands  can  work.  We  have  endeavoured  to 
show  how  little  it  succeeded  even  in  the  strongest  hands ; 
but  the  failure  was  a  greater  thing  than  any  lesser  success 
—  certainly  a  much  greater  thing  than  the  desire  to  be  first 
in  that  shouting  crowd  of  Italian  princedoms  and  common- 
wealths, to  pitPiccinino  and  Carmagnola  against  each  other, 
to  set  your  honour  on  the  stake  of  an  ironbound  band  of 
troopers  deploying  upon  a  harmless  field,  in  wars  which 
would  have  been  not  much  more  important  than  tourna- 
ments ;  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  ruin  and  murder  and  dev- 
astation of  the  helpless  peasants  and  the  smitten  country  on 
either  side. 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       515 

But  the  pettier  role  was  one  of  which  men  tired,  as  much 
as  they  did  of  that  perpetual  strain  of  the  greater  which 
required  an  amount  of  strength  and  concentration  of  mind 
not  given  to  many,  such  as  could  not  (and  this  was  the 
great  defect  of  the  plan)  be  secured  for  a  line  of  Popes  any 
more  than  for  any  other  line  of  men.  The  Popes  who 
would  have  ruled  the  world  failed,  and  gave  up  that  for- 
lorn hope  j  they  were  opposed  by  all  the  powers  of  earth, 
they  were  worn  out  by  fictions  of  anti-Popes,  and  by  real 
and  continual  personal  sufferings  for  their  ideal:  —  and 
they  did  not  even  secure  at  any  time  the  sympathy  of  the 
world.  But  when  among  the  vain  line  of  Pontiffs  who  not 
for  infamy  and  not  for  glory,  but  per  se  lived,  and  flitted, 
a  wavering  file  of  figures  meaning  little,  across  the  surface 
of  the  world  —  there  arose  a  Pope  here  and  there,  forming 
into  a  short  succession  as  the  purpose  grew,  who  took  up 
consciously  the  aim  of  making  Koine  —  not  Eome  Imperial 
nor  yet  Borne  Papal,  which  were  each  a  natural  power  on 
the  earth  and  Head  of  nations,  but  Eome  the  City  —  the 
home  of  art,  the  shrine  of  letters,  in  another  way  and  with 
a  smaller  meaning,  yet  still  meaning  something,  the  centre 
of  the  world  —  their  work  and  position  have  always  at- 
tracted a  great  deal  of  sympathy,  and  gained  at  once  the 
admiration  of  all  men.  English  literature  has  not  done  much 
justice  to  the  greater  Popes.  Mr.  Bowden's  life  of  Gregory 
VII.  is  the  only  work  of  any  importance  specially  devoted  to 
that  great  ruler.  Gregory  the  Great  to  whom  England  owes 
so  much,  and  Innocent  III.,  who  was  also,  though  in  no 
very  favourable  way,  mixed  up  in  her  affairs,  have  tempted 
no  English  historian  to  the  labours  of  a  biography.  But 
Leo  X.  has  had  a  very  different  fate :  and  even  the  Borgias, 
the  worst  of  Papal  houses,  have  a  complete  literature  of  their 
own.  The  difference  is  curious.  It  is  perhaps  by  this  sur- 
vival of  the  unfittest,  so  general  in  literature,  that  English 
distrust  and  prejudice  have  been  so  crystallised,  and  that  to 


516  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

the  humbler  reader  the  word  Pope  remains  the  synonym  of 
a  proud  and  despotic  priest,  sometimes  Inquisitor  and  some- 
times Indulger  —  often  corrupt,  luxurious,  or  tyrannical — a 
ruler  whose  government  is  inevitably  weak  yet  cruel.  The 
reason  of  this  strange  preference  must  be  that  the  love  of 
art  is  more  general  and  strong  than  the  love  of  history ;  or 
rather  that  a  decorative  and  tangible  external  object,  some- 
thing to  see  and  to  admire,  is  more  than  all  theories  of  gov- 
ernment or  morals.  The  period  of  the  Renaissance  is  full 
of  horror  and  impurity,  perhaps  the  least  desirable  of  all 
ages  on  which  to  dwell.  But  art  has  given  it  an  impor- 
tance to  which  it  has  no  other  right. 

Curious  it  is  also  to  find  that  of  all  the  cities  of  Italy, 
Eome  has  the  least  native  right  to  be  considered  in  the  his- 
tory of  art.  No  great  painter  or  sculptor,  architect  or  even 
decorator,  has  arisen  among  the  Roman  people.  Ancient 
Rome  took  her  art  from  Greece.  Modern  Rome  has  sought 
hers  over  all  Italy  —  from  Florence,  from  the  hills  and 
valleys  of  Umbria,  everywhere  but  in  her  own  bosom.  She 
has  crowned  poets,  but,  since  the  days  of  Virgil  and  Horace, 
neither  of  whom  were  Romans  born,  though  more  hers  than 
any  since,  has  produced  none.  All  her  glories  have  been 
imported.  This  of  course  is  often  the  case  with  her  Popes  __ 
also.  Pope  Martin  V.,  to  whom  may  be  given  the  first 
credit  of  the  policy  of  rebuilding  the  city,  was  a  native-born  ^ 
Roman ;  but  Pope  Eugenius  IV.,  who  took  up  its  embellish- 
ment still  more  seriously,  was  a  Venetian,  bringing  with  him 
from  the  sea-margin  the  love  of  glowing  colour  and  that 
"  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones  "  which  was  so  dear  to 
those  who  built  their  palaces  upon  the  waters.  Nicolas  was 
a  Pisan,  Pope  Leo,  who  advanced  the  work  so  greatly,  was  a 
Florentine.  But  their  common  ambition  was  to  make  Rome 
a  wonder  and  a  glory  that  all  men  might  flock  to  see.  The 
tombs  of  the  Apostles  interested  them  less  perhaps  than 
most  of  their  predecessors :  but  they  were  as  strongly  bent 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       517 

as  any  upon  drawing  pilgrims  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to 
see  what  art  could  do  to  make  those  tombs  gorgeous :  and 
built  their  own  to  be  glories  too,  admired  of  all  the  world. 
These  men  have  had  a  fuller  reward  than  their  great  prede- 
cessors. Insomuch  as  the  aim  was  smaller,  it  was  more 
perfectly  carried  out ;  for  though  it  is  a  great  work  to  hang 
a  dome  like  that  of  St.  Peter's  in  the  air,  it  is  easier  than 
to  hold  the  hearts  of  kings  in  your  hand,  and  decide  the 
destiny  of  nations.  The  Popes  who  made  the  city  have  had 
better  luck  in  every  way  than  those  who  made  the  Papacy. 
Neither  of  them  secured  either  the  gratitude  or  even  the 
consent  of  Borne  herself  to  what  was  done  for  her.  But 
nevertheless  almost  all  that  has  kept  up  her  fame  in  the 
world  for,  let  us  say,  the  last  four  hundred  years,  was  their 
work. 

This  period  of  the  history  of  the  great  city  began  when 
Pope  Martin  V.  concluded  what  has  been  called  the  schism 
of  the  West,  and  brought  back  the  seat  of  the  Papacy  from 
Avignon,  where  it  had  been  exiled,  to  Eome.  We  have 
seen  something  of  the  moral  and  economical  state  of  the 
city  during  that  interregnum.  Its  physical  condition  was 
yet  more  desolate  and  terrible.  The  city  itself  was  little__ 
more  than  a  heap  of  ruins.  The  little  cluster  of  the  in- 
habited town  was  as  a  nest  of  life  in  the  centre  of  a  vast 
ancient  mass  of  building,  all  fallen  into  confusion  and  decay. 
No  one  cared  for  the  old  Forums,  the  palaces  ravaged  by 
many  an  invasion,  burned  and  beaten  down,  and  quarried  out, 
by  generations  of  men  to  whom  the  meaning  and  the  memory 
of  their  founders  was  as  nothing,  and  themselves  only  so  many 
waste  places,  or  so  much  available  material  for  the  uses  of 
the  vulgar  day.  Some  one  suggests  that  the  early  Church 
took  pleasure  in  showing  how  entirely  shattered  was  the 
ancient  framework,  and  how  little  the  ancient  gods  had  been 
able  to  do  for  the  preservation  of  their  temples ;  and  with 
that  intention  gave  them  over  to  desolation  and  the  careless 


518  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

hands  of  the  spoiler.  We  think  that  men  are  much  more 
often  swayed  by  immediate  necessities  than  by  any  elaborate 
motive  of  this  description.  The  ruins  were  exceedingly  handy 
—  every  nation  in  its  turn  has  found  such  ruins  to  be  so. 
To  get  the  material  for  your  wall,  without  paying  anything 
for  it,  already  at  your  hand,  hewn  and  prepared  as  nobody 
then  working  could  do  it  —  what  a  wonderful  simplification 
of  labour !  Everybody  took  advantage  of  it,  small  and 
great.  Then,  when  you  wanted  to  build  a  strong  tower  or 
fortress  to  intimidate  your  neighbours,  what  an  admirable 
foundation  were  those  old  buildings,  founded  as  on  the  very 
kernel  and  central  rock  of  the  earth  !  For  many  centuries 
no  one  attempted  to  fill  up  those  great  gaps  within  the  city 
walls,  in  which  vines  flourished  and  gardens  grew,  none  the 
worse  for  the  underlying  stones  that  covered  themselves 
thickly  with  weeds  and  flowers  by  Nature's  lavish  assist- 
ance. Buildings  of  various  kinds,  adapted  to  the  necessities 
of  the  moment,  grew  up  by  nature  in  all  kinds  of  places, 
a  church  sometimes  placed  in  the  very  lap  of  an  ancient 
temple.  Indeed  the  churches  were  everywhere,  some  of 
them  humble  enough,  many  of  great  antique  dignity  and 
beauty,  almost  all  preserving  the  form  of  the  basilica,  the 
place  of  meeting  where  everything  was  open  and  clear  for 
the  holding  of  assemblies  and  delivery  of  addresses,  not  dim 
and  mysterious  as  for  sacrifices  of  faith. 

So  entirely  was  this  state  of  affairs  accepted,  that  there  is 
more  talk  of  repairing  than  of  building  in  the  chronicles ; 
at  all  times  of  the  Church,  each  pious  Pope  undertook  some 
work  of  the  kind,  mending  a  decaying  chapel  or  building  up 
a  broken  wall ;  but  we  hear  of  few  buildings  of  any  impor- 
tance, even  when  the  era  of  the  builders  first  began.  Works 
of  reparation  must  have  been  necessary  to  some  extent  after 
every  burning  or  fight.  Probably  the  scuffles  in  the  streets 
did  little  harm,  but  when  such  a  terrible  inundation  took 
place  as  that  of  the  Normans,  and  still  worse  the  Saracens, 


MODERN   ROME  :    SHELLEY'S  TOMB. 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       521 

who  followed  Eobert  Guiscard  in  the  time  of  Gregory  VII., 
it  must  have  been  the  work  of  a  generation  to  patch  up  the 
remnants  of  the  place  so  as  to  make  it  in  the  rudest  way 
habitable  again.  It  was  no  doubt  in  one  of  these  great 
emergencies  that  the  ancient  palaces,  most  durable  of  all 
buildings,  were  seized  by  the  people,  and  converted  each 
into  a  species  of  rabbit-warren,  foul  and  swarming.  It  does 
not  appear  however  that  any  plan  of  restoring  the  city  to 
its  original  grandeur,  or  indeed  to  any  satisfactory  recon- 
struction at  all,  was  thought  of  for  centuries.  In  the 
extreme  commotion  of  affairs,  and  the  long  struggle  of  the 
Popes  with  the  Emperors,  there  was  neither  leisure  nor 
means  for  any  great  scheme  of  this  kind,  nor  much  thought 
of  the  material  framework  of  the  city,  while  every  mind 
was  bent  upon  establishing  its  moral  position  and  lofty 
standing  ground  among  the  nations.  As  much  as  was  in- 
dispensable would  be  done :  but  in  these  days  the  require- 
ments of  the  people  in  respect  to  their  lodging  were  few :  as 
indeed  they  still  are  to  an  extraordinary  extent  in  Italy, 
where  life  is  so  much  carried  on  out  of  doors*. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  Kome  the  city  had  never  yet 
become  the  object  of  any  man's  life  or  ambition,  or  that  a 
thought  of  anything  beyond  what  was  needful  for  actual 
use,  for  shelter  or  defence,  had  entered  into  the  thoughts  of 
its  masters  when  the  Papal  Court  returned  from  Avignon. 
The  churches  alone  were  cared  for  now  and  then,  and 
decorated  whenever  possible  with  rich  hangings,  with  mar- 
bles and  ancient  columns  generally  taken  from  classical 
buildings,  sometimes  even  from  churches  of  an  older  date ; 
but  even  so  late  as  the  time  of  Petrarch  so  important  a 
building  as  St.  John  Lateran,  the  Papal  church  par  excellence, 
lay  roofless  and  half  ruined,  in  such  a  state  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  say  mass  in  it.  The  poet  describes  Eome  itself, 
when,  after  a  long  walk  amid  all  the  relics  of  the  classical 
ages,  his  friend  and  he  sat  down  to  rest  upon  the  ruined 


522  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

arches  of  the  Baths  of  Diocletian,  and  gazed  upon  the  city 
at  their  feet  —  "  the  spectacle  of  these  grand  ruins."  "  If 
she  once  began  to  recognise  of  herself  the  low  estate  in 
which  she  lies,  Rome  would  make  her  own  resurrection,"  he 
says  with  a  confidence  but  poorly  merited  by  the  factious 
and  restless  city.  But  Rome,  torn  asunder  by  the  feuds  of 
Colonna  and  Orsini,  seizing  every  occasion  to  do  battle  with 
her  Pope,  only  faithful  to  him  in  his  absence, -of  which  she 
complained  to  heaven  and  earth  —  was  little  likely  to  exert 
herself  to  any  such  end. 

This  was  the  unfortunate  plight  in  which  Rome  lay  when 
Martin  V.,  a  Roman  of  the  house  of  Colonna,  came  back  in 
the  year  1421,  with  all  the  treasures  of  art  acquired  by  the 
Popes  during  their  stay  in  France,  to  the  shrine  of  the 
Apostles.  The  historian  Platina,  whose  records  are  so  full 
of  life  when  they  approach  the  period  of  which  he  had  the 
knowledge  of  a  contemporary,  gives  a  wonderful  description 
of  her.  "  He  found  Rome,"  says  the  biographer  of  the  Popes, 
"  in  such  ruin  that  it  bore  no  longer  the  aspect  of  a  city  but 
rather  of  a  desert.  Everything  was  on  the  way  to  complete 
destruction.  The  churches  were  in  ruins,  the  country  aban- 
doned, the  streets  in  evil  state,  and  an  extreme  penury 
reigned  everywhere.  In  fact  it  had  no  appearance  of  a  city 
or  a  sign  of  civilisation.  The  good  Pontiff,  moved  by  the 
sight  of  such  calamity,  gave  his  mind  to  the  work  of  adorn- 
ing and  embellishing  the  city,  and  reforming  the  corrupt 
ways  into  which  it  had  fallen,  which  in  a  short  time  were 
so  improved  by  his  care  that  not  only  Supreme  Pontiff  but 
father  of  his  country  he  was  called  by  all.  He  rebuilt  the 
portico  of  St.  Peter's  which  had  been  falling  into  ruins,  and 
completed  the  mosaic  work  of  the  pavement  of  the  Lateran 
which  he  covered  with  fine  works,  and  began  that  beautiful 
picture  which  was  made  by  Gentile,  the  excellent  painter." 
He  also  repaired  the  palace  of  the  twelve  Apostles,  so  that 
it  became  habitable.  The  Cardinals  in  imitation  of  him 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENICS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       523 

executed  similar  works  in  the  churches  from  which  each 
took  his  title,  and  by  this  means  the  city  began  to  recover 
decency  and  possible  comfort  at  least,  if  as  yet  little  of  its 
ancient  splendour. 

"As  soon  as  Pope  Martin  arrived  in  Borne,"  says  the 
chronicle,  Diarium  Romanum,  of  Infessura,  "  he  began  to 
administer  justice,  for  Borne  was  very  corrupt  and  full  of 
thieves.  He  took  thought  for  everything,  and  especially  to 
those  robbers  who  were  outside  the  walls,  and  who  robbed 
the  poor  pilgrims  who  came  for  the  pardon  of  their  sins  to 
Borne."  The  painter  above  mentioned,  and  who  suggests 
to  us  the  name  of  a  greater  than  he,  would  appear  to  have 
been  Gentile  da  Fabriaiio,  who  seems  to  have  been  employed 
by  the  Pope  at  a  regular  yearly  salary.  These  good  deeds 
of  Pope  Martin  are  a  little  neutralised  by  the  fact  that  he 
gave  a  formal  permission  to  certain  other  of  his  workmen  to 
take  whatever  marbles  and  stones  might  be  wanted  for  the 
pavement  of  the  Lateran,  virtually  wherever  they  happened 
to  find  them,  but  especially  from  ruined  churches  both 
within  and  outside  of  the  city. 

Eugenius  IV.,  who  succeeded  Pope  Martin  in  the  year 
1431,  was  a  man  who  loved  above  all  things  to  "  guerrare  e 
murare  "  —  to  make  war  and  to  build —  a  splendid  and  noble 
Venetian,  whose  fine  and  commanding  person  fills  one  of 
his  biographers,  a  certain  Florentine  bookseller  and  book- 
collector,  called  Vespasiano,  with  a  rapture  of  admiration 
which  becomes  almost  lyrical,  in  the  midst  of  his  simple 
and  garrulous  story. 

"  He  was  tall  in  person,  beautiful  of  countenance,  slender  and 
serious,  and  so  venerable  to  behold  that  there  was  no  one,  by  reason 
of  the  great  authority  that  was  in  him,  who  could  look  him  in  the  face. 
It  happened  one  evening  that  an  important  personage  went  to  speak 
with  him,  who  stood  with  his  head  bowed,  never  raising  his  eyes,  in 
such  a  way  that  the  Pope  perceived  it  and  asked  him  why  he  so  bowed 
his  head.  He  answered  quickly  that  the  Pope  had  such  an  aspect  by 
nature  that  none  dared  meet  his  eye.  I  myself  recollect  often  to 
have  seen  the  Pope  with  his  Cardinals  upon  a  balcony  near  the  door 


524  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  the  cloisters  of  Sta  Maria  Novella  (in  Florence)  when  the  Piazza  de 
Sta  Maria  Novella  was  full  of  people,  and  not  only  the  Piazza,  but 
all  the  streets  that  led  into  it.  And  such  was  the  devotion  of  the 
people  that  they  stood  entranced  (stupefatti}  to  see  him,  not  hearing 
any  one  who  spoke,  but  turning  every  one  towards  the  Pontiff :  and 
when  he  began  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Pope  to  say  the  Adju- 
torium  nostrum  in  nomine  Domini  the  Piazza  was  full  of  weeping  and 
cries,  appealing  to  the  mercy  of  God  for  the  great  devotion  they  bore 
towards  his  Holiness.  It  appeared  indeed  that  this  people  saw  in  him 
not  only  the  vicar  of  Christ  on  earth,  but  the  reflection  of  His  true 
Divinity.  His  Holiness  showed  such  great  devotion,  and  also  all  his 
Cardinals  round  him,  who  were  all  men  of  great  authority,  that  veri- 
tably at  that  moment  he  appeared  that  which  he  represented. " 

There  is  much  refreshment  to  the  soul  in  the  biographies 
of  Vespasiano,  who  was  no  more  than  a  Florentine  book- 
seller as  we  have  said,  greatly  employed  in  collecting  an- 
cient manuscripts,  which  was  the  special  taste  of  the  time, 
with  a  hand  in  the  formation  of  all  the  libraries  then  being 
established,  and  in  consequence  a.  considerable  acquaintance 
with  great  personages,  those  at  least  who  were  patrons  of 
the  arts  and  had  a  literary  turn.  Pope  Eugenius  is  not  in 
ordinary  history  a  highly  attractive  character,  and  the  gen- 
eral records  of  the  Papacy  are  not  such  as  to  allure  the  mind 
as  with  ready  discovery  of  unknown  friends.  But  the  two 
Popes  whom  the  old  bookman  chronicles,  rise  before  us 
in  the  freshest  colours,  the  first  in  stately  serenity  and 
austerity  of  mien,  dazzling  in  his  aspetto  di  natura,  as 
Moses  when  he  came  from  the  presence  of  God  —  moving 
all  hearts  when  he  raised  his  voice  in  the  prayers  of  the 
Church,  every  listener  hanging  on  his  breath,  the  crowd 
gazing  at  him  overwhelmed  as  if  upon  Him  whom  the  Pope 
represented,  though  no  man  dared  face  his  penetrating  eyes. 
It  is  a  great  thing  for  the  most  magnificent  potentate  to 
have  such  a  biographer  as  our  bookseller.  Eugenius  was  as 
kind  as  he  was  splendid,  according  to  Vespasiano.  One  day 
a  poor  gentleman  reduced  to  want  went  to  the  Pope,  appeal- 
ing for  charity  "  being  in  exile,  poor,  and  fuori  delta  patria" 
words  which  are  more  touching  than  their  English  syno- 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  —  NICOLAS  V.       525 

nyms,  out  of  his  country,  banished  from  all  his  belongings : 
an  evil  which  went  to  the  very  hearts  of  those  who  were 
themselves  at  any  moment  subject  to  that  fate,  and  to  whom 
la  patria  meant  an  ungrateful  fierce  native  city  —  never  cer- 
tain in  its  temper  from  one  moment  to  another.  The  Pope 
sent  for  a  purse  full  of  florins,  and  bade  the  exile  take  from 
it  as  much  as  he  wanted.  "  Felice,  abashed,  put  in  his  hand 
timidly,  when  the  Pope  turned  to  him  laughing  and  said, 
1  Put  in  your  hand  freely,  I  give  it  to  you  willingly.' " 
This  being  his  disposition  we  need  not  wonder  that  Vespa- 
sian adds  :  —  "He  never  had  much  supply  of  money  in  the 
house;  according  as  he  had  it,  quickly  he  expended  it." 
Kemembering  what  lies  before  us  in  history  (but  not  in  this 
broken  record  of  men),  soon  to  be  filled  with  Borgias  and 
such  like,  the  reader  would  do  well  to  sweeten  his  thoughts 
on  the  edge  of  the  horrors  of  the  Renaissance,  with  Vespa- 
sian's kind  and  humane  tales.  Platina  takes'up  the  story  in 
a  different  tone. 

"  Among  other  things  Eugenius,  in  order  that  it  might  not  seem  that 
he  thought  of  nothing  but  fighting  (his  wars  were  perpetual,  guerrare 
winning  the  day  over  murare  ;  he  built  like  Nehemiah  with  the  sword 
in  his  other  hand),  canonized  S.  Nicola  di  Tolentino  of  the  order  of  S. 
Augustine,  who  did  many  miracles.  He  built  the  portico  which  leads 
from  the  Church  of  the  Lateran  to  the  Sancta  Sanctorum,  and  remade 
and  enlarged  the  cloister  inhabited  by  the  priests,  and  completed  the 
picture  of  the  Church  begun  under  Martin  by  Gentile.  He  was  not 
easily  moved  by  wrath,  or  personal  offence,  and  never  spoke  evil  of  any 
man,  neither  by  word  of  mouth  nor  hand  of  write.  He  was  gracious 
to  all  the  schools,  specially  to  those  of  Eome,  where  he  desired  to  see 
every  kind  of  literature  and  doctrine  flourish.  He  himself  had  little 
literature,  but  much  knowledge,  especially  of  history.  He  had  a  great 
love  for  monks,  and  was  very  generous  to  them,  and  was  also  a  great 
lover  of  war,  a  thing  which  seems  marvellous  in  a  Pope.  He  was  very 
faithful  to  the  engagements  he  made  —  unless  when  he  saw  that  it  was 
more  expedient  to  revoke  a  promise  than  to  fulfil  it." 

Martin  and  Eugenius  were  both  busy  and  warlike  men. 
They  were  involved  in  all  the  countless  internal  conflicts  of 
Italy ;  they  were  confronted  by  many  troubles  in  the  Church, 
by  the  argumentative  and  persistent  Council  of  Bale,  and 


526  THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

an  anti-Pope  or  two  to  increase  their  cares.  The  reign  of 
Eugenius  began  by  a  flight  from  Rome  with  one  attendant, 
from  the  mob  who  threatened  his  life.  Nevertheless  it  was 
in  these  agitated  days  that  the  first  thought  of  Eome  rebuilt, 
as  glorious  as  a  bride,  more  beautiful  than  in  her  climax  of 
classic  splendour,  began  to  enter  into  men's  thoughts. 

The  reign  of  their  immediate  successor,  the  learned  and 
magnificent  Nicolas  V.,  who  was  created  Pope  in  1447,  was, 
however,  the  actual  era  of  this  new  conception.  It  is  not 
necessary,  we  are  thankful  to  think,  to  enter  here  into  any 
description  of  the  Eenaissance,  that  age  so  splendid  in  art, 
so  horrible  in  history  —  when  every  vice  seemed  let  loose 
on  the  earth,  yet  the  evil  demons  so  draped  themselves  in 
everything  beautiful,  that  they  often  attained  their  most 
dangerous  and  terrible  aspect,  that  of  angels  of  light.  The 
Eenaissance  has  had  more  than  its  share  in  history  ;  it  has 
flooded  the  world  with  scandals  of  every  kind,  and  such 
examples  of  depravity  as  are  scarcely  to  be  found  in  any 
other  age  ;  or  perhaps  it  is  that  no  other  age  has  commanded 
the  same  contrasts  and  incongruities,  the  same  picturesque 
accessories,  the  splendour  and  external  grace,  the  swing  of 
careless  force  and  franchise,  without  restraint  and  without 
shame.  To  many  minds  these  things  themselves  are  enough 
to  attract  and  to  dazzle,  and  they  have  captivated  many 
writers  to  whom  the  brilliant  society,  the  triumphs  of  art, 
the  ever  shifting,  ever  glittering  panorama  with  its  start- 
ling succession  of  scenes,  spectacles,  splendours,  and  trage- 
dies, have  made  the  more  serious  and  more  worthy  records 
of  life  appear  sombre,  and  its  nobler  motives  dull  in  com- 
parison. When  Thomas  of  Sarzana  was  born  in  Pisa  —  in 
a  humble  house  of  peasants  who  had  no  surname  nor  other 
distinction,  but  who  managed  to  secure  for  him  the  educa- 
tion which  was  sufficiently  easy  in  those  days  for  boys  des- 
tined to  the  priesthood  —  the  age  of  the  Eenaissance  was 
coming  into  full  flower.  Literature  and  learning,  the  pur- 


i.]        MARTIN  V.— EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       529 

suit  of  ancient  manuscripts,  the  worship  of  Greece  and  the 
overwhelming  influence  of  its  language  and  masterpieces, 
were  the  inspiration  of  the  age,  so  far  as  matters  intellectual 
were  concerned.  To  read  and  collate  and  copy  was  the 
special  occupation  of  the  literary  class.  If  they  attempted 
any  original  work,  it  was  a  commentary :  and  a  Latin  coup- 
let, an  epigram,  was  the  highest  effort  of  imagination  which 
they  permitted  themselves.  The  day  of  Dante  and  Petrarch 
was  over.  No  one  cared  to  be  volgarizzato  —  brought  down 
in  plain  Italian  to  the  knowledge  of  common  men.  The 
language  of  their  literary  traffic  was  Latin,  the  object  of 
their  adoration  Greek.  To  read,  and  yet  to  read,  and  again 
to  go  on  reading,  was  the  occupation  of  every  man  who 
desired  to  make  himself  known  in  the  narrow  circles  of 
literature ;  and  a  small  attendant  world  of  scribes  was 
maintained  in  every  learned  household,  and  accompanied 
the  path  of  every  scholar.  The  world  so  far  as  its  books 
went  had  gone  back  to  a  period  in  which  gods  and  men 
were  alike  different  from  those  of  the  existing  generation ; 
and  the  living  age,  disgusted  with  its  own  unsatisfactory 
conditions,  attempted  to  gain  dignity  and  beauty  by  prank- 
ing itself  in  the  ill-adapted  robes  of  a  life  totally  different 
from  its  own. 

Between  the  classical  ages  and  the  Christian  there  must 
always  be  the  great  gulf  fixed  of  this  complete  difference 
of  sentiment  and  of  atmosphere.  And  the  wonderful  con- 
tradiction was  more  marked  than  usual  in  Rome  of  a  world 
devoted  outside  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  religion, 
while  dwelling  in  its  intellectual  sphere  in  the  air  of  a 
region  to  which  Christianity  was  unknown.  The  routine  of 
devotion  never  relaxing  —  planned  out  for  every  hour  of 
every  day,  calling  for  constant  attention,  constant  perform- 
ance, avowedly  addressing  itself  not  to  the  learned  or  wise, 
avowedly  restricting  itself  in  all  those  enjoyments  of  life 
which  were  the  first  and  greatest  of  objects  in  the  order  of 

2M 


530  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  ancient  ages  —  yet  carried  on  by  votaries  of  the  Muses, 
to  whom  Jove  and  Apollo  were  more  attractive  than  any 
Christian  ideal  —  must  have  made  an  unceasing  and  bewil- 
dering conflict  in  the  minds  of  men.  No  doubt  that  conflict, 
and  the  evident  certainty  that  one  or  the  other  must  be 
wrong,  along  with  the  strong  setting  of  that  tide  of  fashion 
which  is  so  hard  to  be  resisted,  towards  the  less  exacting 
creed,  had  much  to  do  with  the  fever  of  the  time.  Yet  the 
curious  equalising  touch  of  common  life,  the  established 
order  whatever  it  may  be,  against  which  only  one  here  and 
there  ever  successfully  rebels,  made  the  strange  conjunction 
possible;  and  the  final  conflict  abided  its  time.  Such  a 
man  as  Nicolas  Y.  might  indeed  fill  his  palace  with  scholars 
and  scribes,  and  put  his  greatest  pride  in  his  manuscripts : 
but  the  affairs  of  life  around  were  too  urgent  to  affect  his 
own  constitution  as  Pope  and  priest  and  man  of  his  time. 
He  bandied  epigrams  with  his  learned  convives  in  his 
moments  of  leisure:  but  he  had  himself  too  much  to  do  to 
fall  into  dilettante  heathenism.  Perhaps  the  manuscripts 
themselves,  the  glory  of  possessing  them,  the  busy  scribes 
all  labouring  for  that  high  end  of  instructing  the  world : 
while  courtiers  never  slow  to  catch  the  tone  that  pleased, 
celebrated  their  sovereign  as  the  head  of  humane  and  liberal 
study  as  well  as  of  the  Church  —  may  have  been  more  to 
Nicolas  than  all  his  MSS.  contained.  He  remained  quite 
sincere  in  his  mass,  quite  simple  in  his  life,  notwithstanding 
the  influx  of  the  heathen  element :  and  most  likely  took  no 
note  in  his  much  occupied  career  of  the  great  distance  that 
lay  between. 

Nicolas  Y.  was  the  first  of  those  Pontiffs  who  are  the 
pride  of  modern  Rome  —  the  men  who,  by  a  strange  pro- 
vision, or  as  it  almost  seems  neglect  of  Providence,  appear 
in  the  foremost  places  of  the  Church  pre-occupied  with 
secondary  matters,  when  they  ought  to  have  been  preparing 
for  that  great  Eevolution  which,  it  was  once  fondly  hoped, 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       531 

was  to  lay  spiritual  Rome  in  ruins,  at  the  very  moment 
when  material  Rome  rose  most  gloriously  from  her  ashes. 
But,  notwithstanding  that  he  was  still  troubled  by  that 
long-drawn-out  Council  of  Bale,  it  does  not  seem  that  any 
such  shadow  was  in  the  mind  of  Nicolas.  He  stood  calm 
in  human  unconsciousness  between  heathendom  at  his  back, 
and  the  Reformation  in  front  of  him,  going  about  his  daily 
work  thinking  of  nothing,  as  the  majority  of  men  even  on 
the  eve  of  the  greatest  of  revolutions  so  constantly  do. 
Nicolas  was,  like  so  many  of  the  great  Popes,  a  poor  man's 
son,  without  a  surname,  Thomas  of  Sarzana  taking  his  name 
from  the  village  in  which  he  was  brought  up.  He  had  the 
good  fortune,  which  in  those  days  was  so  possible  to  a 
scholar,  recommended  originally  by  his  learning  alone,  to 
rise  from  post  to  post  in  the  household  of  bishop  and  Car- 
dinal until  he  arrived  at  that  of  the  Pope,  where  a  man  of 
real  value  was  highly  estimated,  and  where  it  was  above  all 
things  important  to  have  a  steadfast  and  faithful  envoy, 
one  who  could  be  trusted  with  the  often  delicate  negotia- 
tions of  the  Holy  See,  and  who  would  neither  be  daunted 
nor  led  astray  by  imperial  caresses  or  the  frowns  of  power. 
"  He  was  very  learned,  dottissimo,  in  philosophy,  and  mas- 
ter of  all  the  arts.  There  were  few  writers  in  Greek  or  in 
Latin  of  any  kind  that  he  had  not  read  their  works,  and  he 
had  the  whole  of  the  Bible  in  his  memory,  and  quoted  from 
it  continually.  This  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Holy  Script- 
ures gave  the  greatest  honour  to  his  pontificate  and  the 
answers  he  was  called  upon  to  make."  There  were  great 
hopes  in  those  days  of  the  reunion  of  the  Greek  Church 
with  the  Latin,  an  object  much  in  the  mind  of  all  the 
greater  Popes :  to  promote  which  happy  possibility  Pope 
Eugenius  called  a  Council  in  Ferrara  in  1438,  which  was 
also  intended  to  confound  the  rebellious  and  heretical 
Council  of  Bale,  as  well  as  to  bring  about,  if  possible,  the 
desired  union.  The  Emperor  of  the  East  was  there  in 


532  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

person,  along  with  the  patriarch  and  a  large  following ;  and 
it  was  in  this  assembly  that  Thomas  of  Sarzana,  then  secre- 
tary and  counsellor  of  the  Cardinal  di  Santa  Croce  —  who 
had  accompanied  his  Cardinal  over  i  monti  on  a  mission  to 
the  King  of  France  from  which  he  had  just  returned  — 
made  himself  known  to  Christendom  as  a  fine  debater  and 
accomplished  student.  The  question  chiefly  discussed  in 
the  Council  of  Ferrara  was  that  which  is  formally  called 
the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  doctrine  which  has 
always  stood  between  the  two  Churches,  and  prevented 
mutual  understanding. 

"  In  this  council  before  the  Pope,  the  Cardinals,  and  all  the  court  of 
Rome,  the  Latins  disputed  daily  with  the  Greeks  against  their  error, 
which  is  that  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father  only  not  from 
the  Son  :  the  Latins,  according  to  the  true  doctrine  of  the  faith,  main- 
taining that  He  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  Every  morn- 
ing and  every  evening  the  most  learned  men  in  Italy  took  part  in  this 
discussion  as  well  as  many  out  of  Italy,  whom  Pope  Eugenius  had 
called  together.  One  in  particular,  from  Negroponte,  whose  name  was 
Niccolo  Secondino :  wonderful  was  it  to  hear  what  the  said  Niccolo 
did ;  for  when  the  Greeks  spoke  and  brought  together  arguments  to 
prove  their  opinion,  Niccolo  Secondino  explained  everything  in  Latin 
de  verbo  ad  verbum,  so  that  it  was  a  thing  admirable  to  hear :  and  when 
the  Latins  spoke  he  expounded  in  Greek  all  that  they  answered  to  the 
arguments  of  the  Greeks.  In  all  these  disputations  Messer  Tommaso 
held  the  part  of  the  Latins,  and  was  admired  above  all  for  his  univer- 
sal knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  also  of  the  doctors,  ancient 
and  modern,  both  Greek  and  Latin." 

Messer  Tommaso  distinguished  himself  so  much  in  this 
controversy  that  he  was  appointed  by  the  Pope  to  confer 
with  certain  ambassadors  from  the  unknown,  Ethiopians, 
Indians,  and  "  Jacobiti,"  —  were  theso  the  envoys  of  Pres- 
ter  John,  that  mysterious  potentate  ?  or  were  they  Nesto- 
rians  as  some  suggest  ?  At  all  events  they  were  Christians 
and  persons  of  singularly  austere  life.  The  conference  was 
carried  on  by  means  of  an  interpreter,  "  a  certain  Venetian 
who  knew  twenty  languages."  These  three  nations  were  so 
convinced  by  Tommaso,  that  they  placed  themselves  under 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  an  incident  which  does  not 


I.] 


MARTIN  V.— EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       533 


make   any   appearance  in  more   dignified    history.     Even 
while  these  important  matters   of   ecclesiastical  business 


ON  THE  PINCIO. 


were  going  on,  however,  this  rising  churchman  kept  his 
eyes  open  as  to  every  chance  of  a  new,  that  is  an  old 
book,  and  would  on  various  occasions  turn  away  from  his 


534  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

most  distinguished  visitors  to  talk  apart  with  Messer  Ves- 
pasiano,  who  once  more  is  our  best  guide,  about  their  mut- 
ual researches  and  good  luck  in  the  way  of  finding  rare 
examples  or  making  fine  copies.  "  He  never  went  out-  of 
Italy  with  his  Cardinal  on  any  mission  that  he  did  not 
bring  back  with  him  some  new  work  not  to  be  found  in 
Italy."  Indeed  Messer  Tommaso's  knowledge  was  so  well 
understood  that  there  was  no  library  formed  on  which  his 
advice  was  not  asked,  and  specially  by  Cosimo  dei  Medici, 
who  begged  his  help  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done  for  the 
formation  of  the  Library  of  S.  Marco  in  Florence  —  to 
which  Tommaso  responded  by  sending  such  instructions 
as  never  had  been  given  before,  how  to  make  a  library, 
and  to  keep  it  in  the  highest  order,  the  regulations  all 
written  in  his  own  hand.  "  Everything  that  he  had,"  says 
Vespasian  in  the  ardour  of  his  admiration,  "he  spent  on 
books.  He  used  to  say  that  if  he  had  it  in  his  power,  the 
two  things  on  which  he  would  like  to  spend  money  would 
be  in  buying  books  and  in  building  (murare) ;  which  things 
he  did  in  his  pontificate,  both  the  one  and  the  other." 
Alas  !  Messer  Tommaso  had  not  always  money,  which  is  a 
condition  common  to  collectors;  in  which  case  Vespasian 
tells  us  (who  approved  of  this  mode  of  procedure  as  a 
bookseller,  though  perhaps  it  was  a  bad  example  to  be  set 
by  the  Head  of  the  Church)  he  had  "to  buy  books  on 
credit  and  to  borrow  money  in  order  to  pay  the  scribes 
and  miniaturists."  The  books,  the  reader  will  perceive, 
were  curious  manuscripts,  illustrated  by  those  schools  of 
painters  in  little,  whose  undying  pigments,  fresh  as  when 
laid  upon  the  vellum,  smile  almost  as  exquisitely  to-day 
from  the  ancient  page  as  in  Messer  Tommaso's  time. 

There  is  an  enthusiasm  of  the  seller  for  the  buyer  in 
Vespasian's  description  of  the  dignified  book-hunter  which 
is  very  characteristic,  but  a^  the  same  time  so  natural  that 
it  places  the  very  man  before  us,  as  he  lived,  a  man  full  of 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.— NICOLAS  V.        535 

humour,  facetissimOj  saying  pleasant  things  to  everybody, 
and  making  every  one  to  whom  he  talked  his  partisan. 

"  He  was  a  man  open,  large  and  liberal,  not  knowing  how  to  feign 
or  dissimulate,  and  the  enemy  of  all  who  feigned.  He  was  also  hostile 
to  ceremony  and  adulation,  treating  all  with  the  greatest  friendliness. 
Great  though  he  was  as  a  bishop,  as  an  ambassador,  he  honoured  all 
who  came  to  see  him,  and  desired  that  whoever  would  speak  with  him 
should  do  so  seated  by  his  side,  and  with  his  head  covered  ;  and  when 
one  would  not  do  so  (out  of  modesty)  he  would  take  one  by  the  arm 
and  make  one  sit  down,  whether  one  liked  or  not." 

A  delightful  recollection  of  that  flattering  compulsion, 
the  great  man's  touch  upon  his  arm,  the  seat  by  his  side, 
upon  which  Vespasian  would  scarcely  be  able  to  sit  for 
pleasure,  is  in  the  bookseller's  tone;  and  he  has  another 
pleasant  story  to  tell  of  Giannozzo  Manetti,  who  went  to  see 
their  common  patron  when  he  was  Cardinal  and  ambassa- 
dor to  France,  and  tried  hard,  in  his  sense  of  too  much 
honour  done  him,  to  prevent  the  great  man  from  accom- 
panying him,  not  only  to  the  door  of  the  reception  room,  but 
down  stairs.  "He  stood  firm  on  the  staircase  to  prevent 
him  from  coming  further  down :  but  Giannozzo  was  obliged 
to  have  patience,  being  in  the  Osteria  del  Lione,  for  not 
only  would  Messer  Tommaso  accompany  him  down  stairs, 
but  to  the  very  door  of  the  hotel,  ambassador  of  Pope 
Eugenius  as  he  was." 

We  must  not,  however,  allow  ourselves  to  be  seduced 
into  prolixity  by  the  old  bookseller,  whose  account  of  his 
patron  is  so  full  of  gratitude  and  feeling.  As  became  a 
scholar  and  lover  of  the  arts,  Nicolas  V.  was  a  man  of  peace. 
Immediately  after  his  elevation  to  the  papacy,  he  declared 
his  sentiments  to  Vespasian  in  the  prettiest  scene,  which 
shines  like  one  of  the  miniatures  they  loved,  out  of  the 
sober  page. 

"Not  long  after  he  was  made  Pope,  I  went  to  see  him  on  Friday 
evening,  when  he  gave  audience  publicly,  as  he  did  once  every  week. 
When  I  went  into  the  hall  in  which  he  gave  audience  it  was  about  one 


536  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

hour  of  the  night  (seven  o'clock  in  the  evening);  he  saw  me  at  once, 
and  called  to  me  that  I  was  welcome,  and  that  if  I  would  have  patience 
a  little  he  would  talk  to  me  alone.  Not  long  after  I  was  told  to  go  to 
his  Holiness.  I  went,  and  according  to  custom  kissed  his  feet ;  after- 
wards he  bade  me  rise,  and  rising  himself  from  his  seat,  dismissed  the 
court,  saying  that  the  audience  was  over.  He  then  went  to  a  private 
room  where  twenty  candles  were  burning,  near  a  door  which  opened 
into  an  orchard.  He  made  a  sign  that  they  should  be  taken  away,  and 
when  we  were  alone  began  to  laugh,  and  to  say  '  Do  the  Florentines 
believe,  Vespasiano,  that  it  is  for  the  confusion  of  the  proud,  that  a 
priest  only  fit  to  ring  the  bell  should  have  been  made  Supreme  Pontiff  ?  ' 
I  answered  that  the  Florentines  believed  that  his  Holiness  had  attained 
that  dignity  by  his  worth,  and  that  they  rejoiced  much,  believing  that 
he  would  give  Italy  peace.  To  this  he  answered  and  said :  '  I  pray  God 
that  He  will  give  me  grace  to  fulfil  that  which  I  desire  to  do,  and  to  use 
no  arms  in  my  pontificate  except  that  which  God  has  given  me  for  my 
defence,  which  is  His  cross,  and  which  I  shall  employ  as  long  as  my 
day  lasts.'  " 

The  cool  darkness  of  the  little  chamber,  near  the  door 
into  the  orchard,  the  blazing  candles  all  sent  away,  the 
grateful  freshness  of  the  Roman  night  —  come  before  us 
like  a  picture,  with  the  Pope's  splendid  robes  glimmering 
white,  and  the  sober-suited  citizen  little  seen  in  the  quick- 
falling  twilight.  It  must  have  been  in  the  spring  or  early 
summer,  the  sweetest  time  in  Rome.  Pope  Eugenius  had 
died  in  the  month  of  February,  and  it  was  on  the  16th  of 
March,  1447,  that  Nicolas  was  elected  to  the  Holy  See. 

A  few  years  after  came  the  jubilee,  in  the  year  1450,  as 
had  now  become  the  habit,  and  the  influx  of  pilgrims  was 
very  great.  It  was  a  time  of  great  profit  not  only  to  the 
Romans  who  turned  the  city  into  one  vast  inn  to  receive  the 
visitors,  but  also  to  the  Pope.  "  The  people  were  like  ants 
on  the  roads  which  led  from  Florence  to  Rome,"  we  are 
told.  The  crowd  was  so  immense  crossing  the  bridge  of 
St.  Angelo,  that  there  were  some  terrible  accidents,  and 
as  many  as  two  hundred  people  were  killed  on  their  way  to 
the  shrine  of  the  Apostles.  "  There  was  not  a  great  lord  in 
all  Christendom  who  did  not  come  to  this  jubilee."  "  Much 
money  came  to  the  Apostolical  See,"  continues  the  biogra- 
pher, "  and  the  Pope  began  to  build  in  many  places,  and  to 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       537 

send  everywhere  for  Greek  and  Latin  books  wherever  he 
could  find  them,  without  regard  to  the  price. 

"  He  also  had  many  scribes  from  every  quarter  to  whom  he  gave 
constant  employment ;  also  many  learned  men  both  to  compose  new 
works,  and  to  translate  those  which  had  not  been  translated,  making 
great  provision  for  them,  both  ordinary  and  extraordinary  ;  and  to 
those  who  translated  books,  when  they  were  brought  to  him,  he  gave 
much  money  that  they  might  go  on  willingly  with  that  which  they  had 
to  do.  He  collected  a  very  great  number  of  books  on  every  subject, 
both  in  Greek  and  Latin,  to  the  number  of  five  thousand  volumes. 
These  at  the  end  of  his  life  were  found  in  the  catalogue  which  did  not 
include  the  half  of  the  copies  of  books  he  had  on  every  subject ;  for  if 
there  was  a  book  which  could  not  be  found,  or  which  he  could  not 
have  in  any  other  way,  he  had  it  copied.  The  intention  of  Pope  Nico- 
las was  to  make  a  library  in  St.  Peter's  for  the  use  of  the  Court  of 
Home,  which  would  have  been  a  marvellous  thing  had  it  been  carried 
out ;  but  it  was  interrupted  by  death." 

Vespasian  adds  for  his  own  part  a  list  of  these  books, 
which  occupies  a  whole  column  in  one  of  Muratori's  gigan- 
tic pages. 

Another  anecdote  we  must  add  to  show  our  Pope's  quaint 
ways  with  his  little  court  of  literary  men. 

*'  Pope  Nicolas  was  the  light  and  the  ornament  of  literature,  and  of 
men  of  letters.  If  there  had  arisen  another  Pontiff  after  him  who 
would  have  followed  up  his  work,  the  state  of  letters  would  have  been 
elevated  to  a  worthy  degree.  But  after  him  things  went  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  there  were  no  prizes  for  virtue.  The  liberality  of  Pope 
Nicolas  was  such  that  many  turned  to  him  who  would  not  otherwise 
have  done  so.  In  every  place  where  he  could  do  honour  to  men  of 
letters,  he  did  so,  and  left  nobody  out.  When  Messer  Francesco 
Filelfo  passed  through  Rome  on  his  way  to  Naples  without  paying 
him  a  visit,  the  Pope,  hearing  of  it,  sent  for  him.  Those  who  went  to 
call  him  said  to  him,  '  Messer  Francesco,  we  are  astonished  that  you 
should  have  passed  through  Rome  without  going  to  see  him.'  Messer 
Francesco  replied  that  he  was  carrying  some  of  his  books  to  King 
Alfonso,  but  meant  to  see  the  Pope  on  his  return.  The  Pope  had  a 
scarsella  at  his  side  in  which  were  five  hundred  florins  which  he  emptied 
out,  saying  to  him,  'Take  this  money  for  your  expenses  on  the  way.' 
This  is  what  one  calls  liberal !  He  had  always  a  scarsella  (pouch)  at 
his  side  where  were  several- hundreds  of  florins  and  gave  them  away 
for  God's  sake,  and  to  worthy  persons.  He  took  them  out  of  the  scar- 
sella by  handfuls  and  gave  to  them.  Liberality  is  natural  to  men,  and 
does  not  come  by  nobility  nor  by  gentry :  for  in  every  generation  we  see 
some  who  are  very  liberal  and  some  who  are  equally  avaricious." 


538  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

But  the  literary  aspect  of  Pope  Nicolas's  character,  how- 
ever delightful,  is  not  that  with  which  we  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned. He  was  the  first  Pope  to  conceive  a  systematic  plan 
for  the  reconstruction  and  permanent  restoration  of  Borne,  a 
plan  which  it  is  needless  to  say  his  life  was  not  long  enough 
to  carry  out,  but  which  yet  formed  the  basis  of  all  after-plans, 
and  was  eventually  more  or  less  accomplished  by  different 
hands. 

It  was  to  the  centre  of  ecclesiastical  Kome,  the  shrine  of 
the  Apostles,  the  chief  church  of  Christendom  and  its  adja- 
cent buildings  that  the  care  of  the  Builder-Pope  was  first 
directed.  The  Leonine  city,  or  Borgo  as  it  is  more  famil- 
iarly called,  is  that  portion  of  Eome  which  lies  on  the  left 
side  of  the  Tiber,  and  which  extends  from  the  castle  of  St. 
Angelo  to  the  boundary  of  the  Vatican  gardens  —  enclosing 
the  church  of  St.  Peter,  the  Vatican  Palace  with  all  its 
wealth,  and  the  great  Hospital  of  Santo  Spirito,  surrounded 
and  intersected  by  many  little  streets,  and  joined  to  the  other 
portions  of  the  city  by  the  bridge  of  St.  Angelo.  Behind 
the  mass  of  picture  galleries,  museums,  and  collections  of 
all  kinds,  which  now  fill  up  the  endless  halls  and  corridors 
of  the  Papal  palace,  comes  a  sweep  of  noble  gardens  full  of 
shade  and  shelter  from  the  Roman  sun,  such  a  resort  for  the 

"learned  leisure 
Which  in  trim  gardens  takes  its  pleasure  " 

as  it  would  be  difficult  to  surpass.  In  this  fine  extent  of 
wood  and  verdure  the  Pope's  villa  or  casino,  now  the  only 
summer  palace  which  the  existing  Pontiff  chooses  to  permit 
himself,  stands  as  in  a  domain,  small  yet  perfect.  Almost 
everything  within  these  walls  has  been  built  or  completely 
transformed  since  the  days  of  Nicolas.  But  then  as  now, 
here  was  the  heart  and  centre  of  Christendom,  the  supreme 
shrine  of  the  Catholic  faith,  the  home  of  the  spiritual  ruler 
whose  sway  reached  over  the  whole  earth.  When  Nicolas 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       539 

began  his  reign,  the  old  church  of  St.  Peter  was  the  church 
of  the  Western  world,  then  as  now,  classical  in  form,  a  stately 
basilica  without  the  picturesqueness  and  romantic  variety, 
and  also,  as  we  think,  without  the  majesty  and  grandeur  of 
a  Gothic  cathedral,  yet  more  picturesque  if  less  stupendous 
in  size  and  construction  than  the  present  great  edifice,  so 
majestic  in  its  own  grave  and,  splendid  way,  with  which 
through  all  the  agitations  of  the  recent  centuries,  the  name 
of  St.  Peter's  has  been  identified.  The  earlier  church  was 
full  of  riches,  and  of  great  associations,  to  which  the  won- 
derful St.  Peter's  we  all  know  can  lay  claim  only  as  its  suc- 
cessor and  supplanter.  With  its  flight  of  broad  steps,  its 
portico  and  colonnaded  fagade  crowned  with  a  great  tower, 
it  dominated  the  square,  open  and  glowing  in  the  sun  with- 
out the  shelter  of  the  great  existing  colonnades  or  the 
sparkle  of  the  fountains.  Behind  was  the  little  palace  begun 
by  Innocent  III.  to  afford  a  shelter  for  the  Popes  in  danger- 
ous times,  or  on  occasion  to  receive  the  foreign  guests  whose 
object  was  to  visit  the  Shrine  of  the  Apostles.  Almost  all 
the  buildings  then  standing  have  been  replaced  by  greater, 
yet  the  position  is  the  same,  the  shrine  unchanged,  though 
everything  else  then  existing  has  faded  away,  except  some 
portion  of  the  old  wall  which  enclosed  this  sacred  place  in 
a  special  sanctity  and  security,  which  was  not,  however, 
always  respected.  The  Borgo  was  the  holiest  portion  of  all 
the  sacred  city.  It  was  there  that  the  blood  of  the  martyrs 
had  been  shed,  and  where  from  the  earliest  age  of  Christian- 
ity their  memory  and  tradition  had  been  preserved.  It  is 
not  necessary  for  us  to  enter  into  the  question  whether  St. 
Peter  ever  was  in  Rome,  which  many  writers  have  labori- 
ously contested.  So  far  as  the  record  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  is  concerned,  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  for  or 
against,  but  tradition  is  all  on  the  side  of  those  who  assert 
it.  The  position  taken  by  Signor  Lanciani  on  this  point 
seems  to  us  a  very  sensible  one.  "  I  write  about  the  monu- 


540  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

ments  of  ancient  Borne,"  he  says,  "  from  a  strictly  archaeo- 
logical point  of  view,  avoiding  questions  which  pertain,  or 
are  supposed  to  pertain,  to  religious  controversy." 

"  For  the  archseologist  the  presence  and  execution  of  SS.  Peter  and 
Paul  in  Rome  are  facts  established  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt  by  purely 
monumental  evidence.  There  was  a  time  when  persons  belonging  to 
different  creeds  made  it  almost  a  case  of  conscience  to  affirm  or  deny  a 
priori  those  facts,  according  to  their  acceptance  or  rejection  of  the 
tradition  of  any  particular  Church.  This  state  of  feeling  is  a  matter  of 
the  past  at  least  for  those  who  have  followed  the  progress  of  recent 
discoveries  and  of  critical  literature.  There  is  no  event  of  the  Imperial 
age  and  of  Imperial  Rome  which  is  attested  by  so  many  noble  structures, 
all  of  which  point  to  the  same  conclusion  —  the  presence  and  execution 
of  the  Apostles  in  the  capital  of  the  empire.  When  Constantine  raised 
the  monumental  basilicas  over  their  tombs  on  the  Via  Cornelia  and  the 
Via  Ostiensis  :  when  Eudoxia  built  the  Church  ad  Vincula :  when 
Damasus  put  a  memorial  tablet  in  the  Platonia  ad  Catacombos: 
when  the  houses  of  Pudens  and  Aquila  and  Prisca  were  turned  into 
oratories :  when  the  name  of  Nymphse  Sancti  Petri  was  given  to  the 
springs  in  the  catacombs  of  the  Via  Nomentana :  when  the  29th  June 
was  accepted  as  the  anniversary  of  St.  Peter's  execution  :  when  sculp- 
tors, painters,  medallists,  goldsmiths,  workers  in  glass  and  enamel,  and 
engravers  of  precious  stones,  all  began  to  reproduce  in  Rome  the  like- 
ness of  the  apostle  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  and  continued 
to  do  so  till  the  fall  of  the  Empire  :  must  we  consider  them  as  labouring 
under  a  delusion,  or  conspiring  in  the  commission  of  a  gigantic  fraud? 
Why  were  such  proceedings  accepted  without  protest  from  whatever 
city,  whatever  community  —  if  there  were  any  other  —  which  claimed 
to  own  the  genuine  tombs  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  ?  These  arguments 
gain  more  value  from  the  fact  that  the  evidence  on  the  other  side  is 
purely  negative." 

This  is  one  of  those  practical  arguments  which  are  always 
more  interesting  than  those  which  depend  upon  theories 
and  opinions.  However,  there  are  many  books  on  both 
sides  of  the  question  which  may  be  consulted.  We  are 
content  to  follow  Signor  Lanciani.  The  special  sanctity 
and  importance  of  II  Borgo  originated  in  this  belief.  The 
shrine  of  the  Apostle  was  its  centre  and  its  glory.  It  was 
this  that  brought  pilgrims  from  the  far  corners  of  the 
earth  before  there  was  any  masterpiece  of  art  to  visit,  or 
any  of  those  priceless  collections  which  now  form  the 
glory  of  the  Vatican.  The  spot  of  the  Apostle's  execution 
was  indicated  "by  immemorial  tradition"  as  between  the 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       541 

two  goals  (inter  duas  metas)  of  Nero's  circus,  which  spot 
Signer  Lanciani  tells  us  is  exactly  the  site  of  the  obelisk 
now  standing  in  the  piazza  of  St.  Peter.  A  little  chapel, 
called  the  Chapel  of  the  Crucifixion,  stood  there  in  the 
early  ages,  before  any  great  basilica  or  splendid  shrine  was 
possible. 

This  sacred  spot,  and  the  church  built  to  commemorate 
it,  were  naturally  the  centre  of  all  those  religious  tradi- 
tions which  separate  Borne  from  every  other  city.  It  was 
to  preserve  them  from  assault,  "  in  order  that  it  should  be 
less  easy  for  the  enemy  to  make  depredations  and  burn 
the  church  of  St.  Peter,  as  they  have  heretofore  done,"  that 
Leo  IV.,  the  first  Pope,  whom  we  find  engaged  in  any  real 
work  of  construction  built  a  wall  round  the  mount  of  the 
Vatican,  the  "  Colle  Vaticano  "  —  little  hill,  not  so  high  as 
the  seven  hills  of  E-ome  —  where  against  the  strong  wall 
of  Nero's  circus  Constantine  had  built  his  great  basilica. 
At  that  period  —  in  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  - 
there  was  nothing  but  the  church  and  shrine  —  no  palace 
and  no  hospital.  The  existing  houses  were  given  to  the 
Corsi,  a  family  which  had  been  driven  out  of  their  island, 
according  to  Platina,  by  the  Saracens,  who  shortly  before 
had  made  an  incursion  up  to  the  very  walls  of  Rome, 
whither  the  peoples  of  the  coast  (luoghi  maritimi  del  Mar 
Terreno)  from  Naples  northward  had  apparently  pursued 
the  Corsairs,  and  helped  the  Eomans  to  beat  them  back. 
One  other  humble  building  of  some  sort,  "called  Burgus 
Saxonum,  Vicus  Saxonum,  Schola  Saxonum,  and  simply 
Saxia  or  Sassia,"  it  is  interesting  to  know,  existed  close 
to  the  sacred  centre  of  the  place,  a  lodging  built  for  him- 
self by  Ina,  King  of  Wessex,  in  727.  Thus  we  have  a 
national  association  of  our  own  with  the  central  shrine  of 
Christianity.  "  There  was  also  a  Schola  Erancorum  in  the 
Borgo."  The  pilgrims  must  have  built  their  huts  and  set 
up  some  sort  of  little  oratory  —  favoured,  as  was  the  case 


542 


THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 


even  in  Pope  Nicolas's  day,  by  the  excellent  quarry  of  the 
circus  close  at   hand  —  as   near  as   possible   to  the   great 


IN  THE  CORSO:  CHURCH  DOORS. 


shrine   and  basilica  which  they  had   come  so  far  to  say 
their  prayers  in ;  and  attracted  too,  no  doubt,  by  the  free- 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       543 

dom  of  the  lonely  suburb  between  the  green  hill  and  the 
flowing  river.  Leo  IV.  built  his  wall  round  this  little  city, 
and  fortified  it  by  towers.  "In  every  part  he  put  sculpt- 
ures of  marble  and  wrote  a  prayer,"  says  Platina.  One  of 
these  gates  led  to  St.  Pellegrino,  another  was  close  to  the 
castle  of  St.  Angelo,  and  was  "  the  gate  by  which  one  goes 
forth  to  the  open  country."  The  third  led  to  the  School 
of  the  Saxons ;  and  over  each  was  a  prayer  inscribed. 
These  three  prayers  were  all  to  the  same  effect  —  "that 
God  would  defend  this  new  city  which  the  Pope  had  en- 
closed with  walls  and  called  by  his  own  name,  the  Leonine 
City,  from  all  assaults  of  the  enemy,  either  by  fraud  or 
by  force." 

This  was  then  from  the  beginning  the  citadel  and  inner- 
most sanctuary  of  Eome.  It  was  not  till  much  later,  under 
the  reign  of  Innocent  III.,  that  the  idea  of  building  a  house 
for  the  Pope  within  that  enclosure  originated.  The  same 
great  Pope  founded  the  vast  hospital  of  the  Santo  Spirito 
—  on  the  site  of  a  previous  hospice  for  the  poor  either 
within  or  close  to  its  walls.  Thus  it  came  to  be  the  lodging 
of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  and  of  the  scarcely  less  sacred 
sick  and  suffering,  as  well  as  the  most  holy  and  chiefest 
of  all  Christian  sanctuaries.  Were  we  to  be  very  minute, 
it  might  be  easily  proved  that  almost  every  Pope  contrib- 
uted something  to  the  existence  and  decoration  of  the  Leo- 
nine city,  the  imperium  in  imperio;  and  specially,  as  was 
natural,  to  the  great  basilica. 

The  little  Palazzo  di  San  Pietro  being  close  to  St.  Angelo, 
the  stronghold  and  most  safe  resort  in  danger,  was  occupied 
by  the  court  on  its  return  from  Avignon,  and  probably  then 
became  the  official  home  of  the  Popes;  though  for  some 
time  there  seems  to  have  been  a  considerable  latitude  in  that 
respect.  Pope  Martin  afterwards  removed  to  the  Palace 
of  the  Apostles.  Another  of  the  Popes  preferred  to  all 
others  the  great  Palazzo  Venezia,  which  he  had  built :  but 


544:  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

the  name  of  the  Vatican  was  henceforth  received  as  the  title 
of  the  Papal  court.  The  enlargement  and  embellishment  of 
this  palace  thus  became  naturally  the  great  object  of  the 
Popes,  and  nothing  was  spared  upon  it.  It  is  put  first  in 
every  record  of  achievement  even  when  there  is  other  im- 
portant work  to  describe.  "Nicolas,"  says  Platina,  "  builded 
magnificently  both  in  the  Vatican,  and  in  the  city.  He 
rebuilt  the  churches  of  St.  Stefano  Eotondo  and  of  St.  Teo- 
doro,"  the  former  most  interesting  church  being  built  upon 
the  foundations  of  a  round  building  of  classical  times,  sup- 
posed, Mr.  Hare  tells  us,  to  have  belonged  to  the  ancient 
Fleshmarket,  as  we  should  say,  the  Macellum  Magnum. 
S.  Teodoro  is  also  a  rotondo.  It  would  seem  that  there 
were  different  opinions  as  to  the  success  of  these  restorations 
in  the  fifteenth  century  such  as  arise  among  ourselves  in 
respect  to  almost  every  work  of  the  same  kind.  A  certain 
"  celebrated  architect,"  Francesco  di  Giorgio  di  Martino,  of 
Sienna,  was  then  about  the  world,  a  man  who  spoke  his 
mind.  "  Hedifttio  ruinato,"  he  says  of  St.  Stefano,  with 
equal  disregard  to  spelling  and  to  manners.  "Rebuilt," 
he  adds,  "  by  Pope  Nichola ;  but  much  more  spoilt : " 
which  is  such  a  thing  as  we  now  hear  said  of  the  once 
much-vaunted  restorations  of  Sir  Gilbert  Scott.  Our  Pope 
also  "made  a  leaden  roof  for  Sta.  Maria  Eotonda  in  the 
middle  of  the  city,  built  by  M.  Agrippa  as  a  temple  for  all 
the  gods  and  called  the  Pantheon."  He  must  have  been 
fond  of  this  unusual  form ;  but  whether  it  was  a  mere  whim 
of  personal  liking,  or  if  there  was  any  meaning  in  his  con- 
struction of  these  round  temples,  we  have  no  information. 
Perhaps  Nicolas  had  a  special  admiration  of  the  solemn 
and  beautiful  Pantheon,  in  which  we  completely  sympathise. 
The  question  is  too  insignificant  to  be  inquired  into.  Yet 
it  is  curious  in  its  way. 

These  were  however,  though  specially  distinguished  by 
Platina,  but  a  drop  in  the  ocean  to  the  numberless  undertak- 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.       545 

ings  of  Pope  Nicolas  throughout  the  city;  and  all  these 
again  were  inferior  in  importance  to  the  great  works  in  St. 
Peter's  and  the  Vatican,  to  which  his  predecessors  had  each 
put  a  hand  so  long  as  their  time  lasted.  "  In  the  Vatican/7 
says  Platina,  "he  built  those  apartments  of  the  Pontiff, 
which  are  to  be  seen  to  this  day :  and  he  began  the  wall  of 
the  Vatican,  great  and  high,  with  its  incredible  depth  of 
foundation,  and  high  towers,  to  hold  the  enemy  at  a  dis- 
tance, so  that  neither  the  church  of  St.  Peter  (as  had  already 
happened  several  times)  nor  the  palace  of  the  Pope  should 
ever  be  sacked.  He  began  also  the  tribune  of  the  church 
of  St.  Peter,  that  the  church  might  hold  more  people,  and 
might  be  more  magnificent.  He  also  rebuilt  the  Ponte 
Molle,  and  erected  near  the  baths  of  Viterbo  a  great  palace. 
Having  the  aid  of  much  money,  he  built  many  parts  of  the 
city,  and  cleansed  all  the  streets."  Great  also  in  other  ways 
were  his  gifts  to  his  beloved  church  and  city  — "  vases  of 
gold  and  silver,  crosses  ornamented  with  gems,  rich  vest- 
ments and  precious  tapestry,  woven  with  gold  and  silver, 
and  the  mitre  of  the  Pontificate,  which  demonstrated  his 
liberality."  It  was  he  who  first  placed  a  second  crown  on 
the  mitre,  which  up  to  this  time  had  borne  one  circlet  alone. 
The  complete  tiara  with  the  three  crowns  was  adopted  in  a 
later  reign. 

The  two  previous  Popes,  his  predecessors,  had  been  mag- 
nificent also  in  their  acquisitions  for  the  Church  in  this 
kind  j  both  of  them  being  curious  in  goldsmiths'  work,  then 
entering  upon  its  most  splendid  development,  and  in  their 
collections  of  precious  stones.  The  valuable  work  of  M. 
Muntz,  Les  Arts  a  la  GOUT  des  .papes,  abounds  in  details  of 
these  splendid  jewels.  Indeed  his  sober  records  of  daily 
work  and  its  payment  seem  to  transport  us  out  of  one  busy 
scene  into  another  as  by  the  touch  of  a  magician's  wand,  as 
if  Rome  the  turbulent  and  idle,  full  of  aimless  popular 
rushes  to  and  fro,  had  suddenly  become  a  beehive  full  of 

2N 


546  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.  CHAP. 

energetic  workers  and  the  noise  of  cheerful  labour,  both  out 
of  doors  in  the  sun,  where  the  masons  were  loudly  at  work, 
and  in  many  a  workshop,  where  the  most  delicate  and  in- 
genious arts  were  being  carried  on.  Roman  artists  at  length 
began  to  appear  amid  the  host  of  Florentines  and  the  whole 
world  seems  to  have  turned  into  one  great  bottega  full  of 
everything  rich  and  rare. 

The  greatest,  however,  of  all  the  conceptions  of  Pope 
Nicolas,  the  very  centre  of  his  great  plan,  was  the  library  of 
the  Vatican,  which  he  began  to  build  and  to  which  he  left 
all  the  collections  of  his  life.  Vespasian  gives  us  a  list  of 
the  principal  among  those  5,000  volumes,  the  things  which 
he  prized  most,  which  the  Pope  bequeathed  to  the  Church 
and  to  Rome.  These  cherished  rolls  of  parchment,  many  of 
them  translations  made  under  his  own  eyes,  were  enclosed 
in  elaborate  bindings  ornamented  with  gold  and  silver.  We 
are  not,  however,  informed  whether  any  of  the  great  treas- 
ures of  the  Vatican  library  came  from  his  hands  —  the  good 
Vespasian  taking  more  interest  in  the  work  of  his  scribes 
than  in  Codexes.  He  tells  us  of  500  scudi  given  to  Lorenzo 
Valle  with  a  pretty  speech  that  the  price  was  below  his 
merits,  but  that  eventually  he  should  have  more  liberal  pay ; 
of  1,500  scudi  given  to  Guerroni  for  a  translation  of  the 
Iliad,  and  so  forth.  It  is  like  a  bookseller  of  the  present 
day  vaunting  his  new  editions  to  a  collector  in  search  of  the 
earliest  known.  But  Pope  Nicolas,  like  most  other  patrons 
of  his  time,  knew  no  Greek,  nor  probably  ever  expected  that 
it  would  become  a  usual  subject  of  study,  so  that  his  trans- 
lations were  precious  to  him,  the  chief  way  of  making  his 
treasures  of  any  practical  use. 

The  greater  part,  alas !  of  all  this  splendour  has  passed 
away.  One  pure  and  perfect  glory,  the  little  chapel  of  San 
Lorenzo,  painted  by  the  tender  hand  of  Fra  Angelico,  remains 
unharmed,  the  only  work  of  that  grand  painter  to  be  found 
in  R-ome.  If  one  could  have  chosen  a  monument  for  the 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  —  EUGENICS  IV.  — NICOLAS  V.        549 

good  Pope,  the  patron  and  friend  of  art  in  every  form,  there 
could  not  have  been  a  better  than  this.  Era  Angelico  seems 
to  have  been  brought  to  Eome  by  Pope  Eugenius,  but  it  was 
under  Nicolas,  in  two  or  three  years  of  gentle  labour,  that 
the  work  was  done.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  enumerate 
all  the  undertakings  of  Pope  Nicolas.  He  did  something  to 
re-establish  or  decorate  almost  all  of  the  great  basilicas. 
It  is  feared  —  but  here  our  later  historians  speak  with  bated 
breath,  not  liking  to  bring  such  an  accusation  against  the 
kind  Pope,  who  loved  men  of  letters  —  that  the  destruction 
of  St.  Peter's,  afterwards  ruthlessly  carried  out  by  succeed- 
ing Popes  was  in  his  plan :  on  the  pretext,  so  constantly 
employed,  and  possibly  believed  in,  of  the  instability  of  the 
ancient  building.  But  there  is  no  absolute  certainty  of 
evidence,  and  at  all  events  he  might  have  repented,  for  he 
certainly  did  not  do  that  deed.  He  began  the  tribune,  how- 
ever, in  the  ancient  church,  which  may  have  been  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  entire  renewal  of  the  edifice ;  and  he  did  much 
towards  the  decoration  of  another  round  church,  that  of 
the  Madonna  delle  Febbre,  an  ill-omened  name,  attached  to 
the  Vatican.  He  also  built  the  Belvedere  in  the  gardens, 
and  surrounded  the  whole  with  strong  walls  and  towers 
(round),  one  of  which  according  to  Nibby  still  remained 
fifty  years  ago ;  which  very  little  of  Nicolas's  building  has 
done.  His  great  sin  was  one  which  he  shared  with  all  his 
brother-Popes,  that  he  boldly  treated  the  antique  ruins  of 
the  city  as  quarries  for  his  new  buildings,  not  without  protest 
and  remonstrance  from  many,  yet  with  the  calm  of  a  mind 
preoccupied  and  seeing  nothing  so  great  and  important  as 
the  work  upon  which  his  own  heart  was  set. 

This  excellent  Pope  died  in  1455,  soon  after  having 
received  the  news  of  the  downfall  of  Constantinople,  which 
is  said  to  have  broken  his  heart.  He  had  many  ailments, 
and  was  always  a  small  and  spare  man  of  little  strength  of 
constitution ;  but  "  nothing  transfixed  his  heart  so  much  as 


550  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

to  hear  that  the  Turk  had  taken  Constantinople  and  killed 
the  Europeans,  with  many  thousands  of  Christians/'  among 
them  that  same  "  Imperadore  de  Gostantinopli "  whom  he 
had  seen  seated  in  state  at  the  Council  of  Ferrara,  listening 
to  his  own  and  other  arguments,  only  a  few  years  before  — 
as  well  as  the  greater  part,  no  doubt,  of  his  own  clerical  op- 
ponents there.  When  he  was  dying  "  being  not  the  less  of  a 
strong  spirit,"  he  called  the  Cardinals  round  his  bed,  and 
many  prelates  with  them,  and  made  them  a  last  address. 
His  pontificate  had  lasted  a  little  more  than  eight  years,  and 
to  have  carried  out  so  little  of  his  great  plan  must  have 
been  heavy  on  his  heart ;  but  his  dying  words  are  those  of 
one  to  whom  the  holiness  and  unity  of  the  Church  came 
before  all.  No  doubt  the  fear  that  the  victorious  Turks 
might  spread  ruin  over  the  whole  of  Christendom  was  first 
in  his  mind  at  that  solemn  hour. 

" '  Knowing,  my  dearest  brethren,  that  I  am  approaching  the  hour  of 
my  death,  I  would,  for  the  greater  dignity  and  authority  of  the  Apos- 
tolic See,  make  a  serious  and  important  testament  before  you,  not  com- 
mitted to  the  memory  of  letters,  not  written,  neither  on  a  tablet  nor  on 
parchment,  but  given  by  my  living  voice  that  it  may  have  more  author- 
ity. Listen,  I  pray  you,  while  your  little  Pope  Nicolas  (papa  Nicco- 
lajo)  in  the  very  instant  of  dying  makes  his  last  will  before  you.  In 
the  first  place  I  render  thanks  to  the  Highest  God  for  the  measureless 
benefits  which,  beginning  from  the  day  of  my  birth  until  the  present 
day,  I  have  received  of  His  infinite  mercy.  And  now  I  recommend  to 
you  this  beautiful  spouse  of  Christ,  whom,  so  far  as  I  was  able,  I  have 
exalted  and  magnified,  as  each  of  you  is  well  aware  ;  knowing  this  to 
be  to  the  honour  of  God,  for  the  great  dignity  that  is  in  her,  and  the 
great  privileges  that  she  possesses,  and  so  worthy,  and  formed  by  so 
worthy  an  Author,  who  is  the  Creator  of  the  Universe.  Being  of  sane 
mind  and  intellect,  and  having  done  that  which  every  Christian  is 
called  to  do,  and  specially  the  Pastor  of  the  Church,  I  have  received 
the  most  sacred  body  of  Christ  with  penitence,  taking  from  His  table 
with  my  two  hands,  and  praying  the  Omnipotent  God  that  he  would 
pardon  my  sins.  Having  had  these  sacraments  I  have  also  received 
the  extreme  unction  which  is  the  last  sacrament  for  the  redeeming  of 
my  soul.  Again  I  recommend  to  you,  as  long  as  I  am  able,  the  Roman 
Church,  notwithstanding  that  I  have  already  done  so  ;  for  this  is  the 
most  important  duty  you  have  to  fulfil  in  the  sight  of  God  and  men. 
This  is  that  true  Spouse  of  Christ  which  He  bought  with  his  blood. 
This  is  that  robe  without  seam,  which  the  impious  Jews  would  have 
torn  but  could  not.  This  is  that  ship  of  St.  Peter,  Prince  of  the  Apostles, 


i.]        MARTIN  V.  — EUGENIUS  IV.— NICOLAS  V.       551 

agitated  and  tossed  by  varied  fortunes  of  the  winds,  but  sustained  by  the 
Omnipotent  God,  so  that  she  can  never  be  submerged  or  shipwrecked. 
With  all  the  strength  of  your  souls  sustain  her  and  rule  her  :  she  has 
need  of  your  good  works,  and  you  should  show  a  good  example  by  your 
lives.  If  you  with  all  your  strength  care  for  her  and  love  her,  God  will 
reward  you,  both  in  this  present  life  and  in  the  future  with  life  eternal; 
and  to  do  this  with  all  the  strength  we  have,  we  pray  you  :  do  it  dili- 
gently, dearest  brethren.' 

"  Having  said  this  he  raised  his  hands  to  heaven  and  said,  '  Omnip- 
otent God,  grant  to  the  Holy  Church,  and  to  these  fathers,  a  pastor 
who  will  preserve  her  and  increase  her ;  give  to  them  a  good  pastor 
who  will  rule  and  govern  thy  flock  the  most  maturely  that  one  can  rule 
and  govern.  And  I  pray  for  you  and  comfort  you  as  much  as  I  know 
and  can.  Pray  for  me  to  God  in  your  prayers.'  When  he  had  ended 
these  words,  he  raised  his  right  arm  and,  with  a  generous  soul,  gave 
the  benediction  —  Benedicat  vos  Deus,  Pater  et  Filius  et  Spiritus 
Sanctus  —  speaking  with  a  raised  voice  and  solemnly,  in  modo  Pon- 
tificale." 

These  tremulous  words,  broken  and  confused  by  the  weak- 
ness of  his  last  hours,  were  taken  down  by  the  favourite 
scribe,  Giannozzo  Maiietti,  in  the  chamber  of  the  dying 
Pope:  with  much  more  of  the  most  serious  matter  to  the 
Church  and  to  Rome.  His  eager  desire  to  soften  all  possi- 
ble controversies  and  produce  in  the  minds  of  the  conclave 
about  his  bed,  so  full  of  ambition  and  the  force  of  life,  the 
softened  heart  which  would  dispose  them  to  a  peaceful  and 
conscientious  election  of  his  successor,  is  very  touching, 
coming  out  of  the  fogs  and  mists  of  approaching  death. 

In  the  very  age  that  produced  the  Borgias,  and  himself 
the  head  of  that  band  of  elegant  scholars  and  connoisseurs, 
everything  but  Christian,  to  whom  Rome  owes  so  much  of 
her  external  beauty  and  splendour,  it  is  pathetic  to  stand  by 
this  kind  and  gentle  spirit  as  he  pauses  on  the  threshold 
of  a  higher  life,  subduing  the  astute  and  worldly  minded 
Churchmen  round  him  with  the  tender  appeal  of  the  dying 
father,  their  Papa  Niccolajo,  familiar  and  persuasive  —  be- 
seeching them  to  be  of  one  accord  without  so  much  as  say- 
ing it,  turning  his  own  weakness  to  account  to  touch  their 
hearts,  for  the  honour  of  the  Church  and  the  welfare  of 
the  flock. 


MODERN  DEGRADATION   OF  A  PALACE. 


CHAPTER  II. 


CALIXTUS    III.  -  PIUS    II.  —  PAUL    II.  —  SIXTUS    IV. 

IT  is  not  unusual  even  in  the  strictest  of  hereditary  mon- 
archies to  find  the  policy  of  one  ruler  entirely  contra- 
dicted and  upset  by  his  successor;  and  it  is  still  more 
natural  that  such  a  thing  should  happen  in  a  succession 
of  men,  unlike  and  unconnected  with  each  other  as  were 
the  Popes;  but  the  difference  was  more  than  usually 
great  between  Nicolas  and  Calixtus  III.,  the  next  occu- 
pant of  the  Holy  See,  elected  1455,  died  1458,  who  was 
an  old  man  and  a  Spaniard,  and  loved  neither  books  nor 
pictures,  nor  any  of  the  new  arts  which  had  bewitched  (as 
many  people  believed)  Pope  Nicolas  and  seduced  him  into 
squandering  the  treasure  of  the  Papacy  upon  unnecessary 

552 


CH.  ii.]    CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.    553 

buildings,  and  still  more  unnecessary  decorations.  Calixtus 
was  a  Borgia,  the  first  to  introduce  the  horror  of  that  name : 
but  he  was  not  in  himself  a  harmful  personage.  "  He  spent 
little  in  building,"  says  Platina,  "for  he  lived  but  a  short 
time,  and  saved  all  his  money  for  the  undertaking  against 
the  Turks/7  an  enterprise  which  had  become  a  very  real 
and  necessary  one,  now  that  Constantinople  had  fallen ; 
but  which  had  no  longer  the  romance  and  sentiment  of  the 
Crusades  to  inspire  it,  though  successive  Pontiffs  did  their 
best  to  rouse  Christendom  on  the  subject.  The  aged  Span- 
ish Cardinal  threw  himself  into  it  with  all  the  fervour  of 
his  nature,  which  better  than  many  others  knew  the  mettle 
of  the  Moor.  His  short  term  of  power  was  entirely  occu- 
pied with  this.  A  little  building  went  on,  which  could  not 
be  helped :  the  walls  had  always  to  be  looked  to ;  but  Pope 
Mcolas's  army  of  scribes  were  all  turned  off  summarily; 
the  studios  were  closed,  the  artist  people  turned  away  about 
their  business ;  all  the  great  works  put  a  stop  to.  Worse 
even  than  that  —  for  Calixtus  was  a  short-lived  interruption, 
and  perhaps  might  only  have  stopped  the  progress  of  events 
for  some  three  years  or  so  —  Pope  Nicolas's  great  plan,  which 
was  so  complete,  went  out  of  sight,  and  was  lost  in  the 
limbo  of  good  intentions..  His  workmen  were  dispersed, 
and  the  fashion  to  which  he  had  accustomed  the  world, 
changed.  It  was  only  resumed  with  earnestness  after 
several  generations,  and  never  quite  in  the  great  lines  which 
he  had  laid  out.  Neither  did  the  new  Pope  get  his  Crusade, 
which  might  have  been  a  better  thing.  Yet  Calixtus  was 
a  person  assai  generoso,  Platina  tells  us;  in  any  case  he 
occupied  his  great  post  for  a  very  short  time. 

His  successor,  Pius  II.,  1458,  on  the  other  hand,  was  such  a 
man  as  might  well  have  inherited  the  highest  purpose.  He 
is  almost  better  known  as  Eneas  Silvius,  a  famous  traveller 
and  writer  —  not  the  usual  peasant  monk  without  a  surname 
as  so  many  had  been,  but  one  of  the  Piccolomini  of  Sienna, 


554:  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

a  great  house,  though,  ruined  or  partially  ruined  in  his  day. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  travelled  much,  and  was  known  at 
all  the  courts;  at  one  time  young,  heretical,  adventurous, 
and  ready  to  pull  down  all  authorities,  the  life  and  soul 
of  that  famous  Council  of  Bale  which  took  upon  itself  to 
depose  Pope  Eugenius ;  but  not  long  after  that  outburst 
of  independent  youthfulness  and  energy  was  over,  we  find 
him  filling  the  highest  ofiices,  the  Legate  of  Eugenius  and 
a  very  rising  yet  always  much-opposed  Cardinal.  He  it 
was  who  travelled  to  a  remote  and  obscure  little  country 
called  Scotland,  in  the  Pope's  name,  to  arrange  matters 
there;  and  found  the  people  very  savage,  digging  stones 
out  of  the  earth  to  make  fires  of  them :  but  having  plenty 
of  fish  and  flesh,  and  surprisingly  comfortable  on  the  whole. 
He  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  who  ever  sat  on  the  Papal 
throne,  but  too  reasonable,  too  moderate,  too  natural  for  the 
position.  He  loved  literature,  or  at  least  he  loved  books, 
which  is  not  always  the  same  thing,  and  himself  wrote  a 
great  many  on  various  subjects ;  and  he  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  have  the  historian  of  the  Popes,  Platina  —  our  guide, 
who  we  would  have  wished  might  live  for  ever  —  for  his 
librarian,  who  was  worth  all  the  marble  tombs  in  the  world 
and  all  the  epitaphs  to  a  man  whom  he  liked,  and  worse 
than  any  heathen  conqueror  to  the  man  who  was  unkind  to 
him. 

Platina  gives  us  a  beautiful  character  of  Pope  Pius.  He 
is  very  lenient  to  the  faults  of  his  youth,  as  indeed  most 
historians  are  in  respect  to  personages  afterwards  great, 
finding  in  their  peccadilloes,  we  presume,  a  welcome  and 
picturesque  relief  to  the  perfections  that  become  a  Pope. 
Yet  Pius  II.  was  never  too  perfect.  He  was  a  man  who 
disliked  the  narrowness  of  a  court,  and  loved  the  fresh  air, 
and  to  give  audience  in  his  garden,  and  to  eat  his  modest 
meal  beside  the  tinkling  of  a  fountain  or  under  the  shade 
of  trees.  He  loved  wit  and  a  joke,  and  even  gave  ear  to 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.    555 

ridiculous  things  and  to  the  excellent  mimicry  of  a  certain 
Florentine,  who  "  took  off "  the  courtiers  and  other  absurd 
persons,  and  made  his  Holiness  laugh.  And  he  was  hasty 
in  temper,  but  bore  no  malice,  and  paid  no  attention  to  evil 
reports  raised  about  himself.  "He  never  punished  those 
who  spoke  ill  of  him,  saying  that  in  a  free  city  like  Rome, 
every  one  should  speak  freely  what  he  thought."  He  hated 
lying  and  story-tellers,  and  never  made  war  unless  he  was 
forced  to  it.  Whenever  he  was  freed  from  the  trials  of  busi- 
ness he  took  his  pleasure  in  reading  or  in  writing.  "  Books 
were  more  dear  to  him  than  sapphires  or  emeralds,"  says  Pla- 
tina,  with  a  shrewd  prick  by  the  way  at  his  successor,  Paul, 
as  we  shall  afterwards  see,  "  and  he  was  used  to  say  that  his 
chrysolites  and  other  jewels  were  all  enclosed  in  them." 
He  never  took  a  meal  alone  if  he  could  help  it,  but  loved  a 
lively  companion,  and  to  make  his  little  feasts  in  his  garden 
as  we  have  said,  shocking  much  the  scandalised  courtiers, 
who  declared  that  no  other  Pope  had  ever  done  such  a 
thing ;  for  which  Pope  Pius  cared  nothing  at  all.  He  wrote 
upon  all  kinds  of  subjects,  from  a  grammar  which  he  made 
for  the  little  King  of  Hungary,  to  histories  of  various  king- 
doms, and  philosophical  disquisitions.  Indeed  the  list  of 
his  subjects  is  like  that  of  a  series  of  popular  lectures  in 
our  own  day.  "  He  wrote  many  books  in  dialogue  —  upon 
the  power  of  the  Council  of  Bale,  upon  the  sources  of  the 
Nile,  upon  hunting,  upon  fate,  upon  the  presence  of  God." 
If  he  had  been  a  University  Extension  lecturer,  he  could 
scarcely  have  been  more  many-sided.  And  he  wrote  largely 
upon  peace,  no  less  than  thirty-two  orations  "  upon  the  peace 
of  kings,  the  concord  of  princes,  the  tranquillity  of  nations, 
the  defence  of  religion,  and  the  quiet  of  the  world."  There 
was  neither  peace  among  kings,  concord  among  princes,  nor 
tranquillity  among  nations  when  Pope  Pius  delivered  and 
collected  his  orations.  They  ought  to  have  had  all  the 
greater  effect;  but  we  fear  he  was  too  wise  a  man  to  put 


556  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

much  faith,  in  any  immediate  result.  His  greatest  work, 
however,  was  his  Commentaries,  an  enlarged  and  philosophi- 
cal study  of  his  own  times,  which  he  did  not  live  long 
enough  to  finish. 

This  Pontiff  carried  on  the  work  of  his  predecessor  more 
or  less,  but  without  any  great  zeal  for  it.  "  He  collected 
manuscripts,  but  with  discretion ;  he  built,  but  it  was  in 
moderation,"  Bishop  Creighton  says.  Platina,  with  more 
warmth,  tells  us  that  "  he  took  great  delight  in  building," 
but  he  seems  to  have  confined  himself  to  his  own  immediate 
surroundings,  working  at  the  improvement  of  St.  Peter's, 
building  a  chapel,  putting  up  a  statue,  restoring  the  great 
flight  of  stairs  which  then  as  now  led  up  to  the  portico 
which  previous  Popes  had  adorned ;  and  adding  a  little  to 
the  defences  and  decoration  of  the  Vatican.  He  is  sus- 
pected of  having  had  a  guilty  liking  for  the  Gothic  style  in 
architecture  which  greatly  shocked  the  Roman  dilettanti; 
and  certainly  expressed  his  admiration  for  some  of  the 
great  churches  in  Germany  with  enthusiasm.  One  great 
piece  of  architectural  work  he  did,  but  it  was  not  at  Rome. 
It  was  in  the  headquarters  of  his  family  at  Sienna,  and 
specially  in  the  little  adjacent  town  of  Corsignano,  where 
he  was  born,  one  of  those  little  fortified  villages  which  add 
so  much  to  the  beauty  of  Italy.  This  little  place  he  made 
glorious  with  beautiful  buildings,  forgetting  his  native  wis- 
dom and  discretion  in  the  foolishness  of  that  narrow  but 
intense  patriotism  which  bound  the  Italian  to  his  native 
town,  and  made  it  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  to  his  eyes. 
It  gives  a  charm  the  more  to  his  interesting  character  that 
he  should  have  been  capable  of  such  a  folly;  though  not 
perhaps  that  he  should  have  changed  its  name  to  Pienza,  a 
reflection  of  his  own  pontifical  name. 

With  this,  however,  we  have  nothing  to  do,  and  not  very 
much  altogether  with  the  great  Piccolomini,  though  he  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  and  sympathetic  figures  which  has 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     557 

ever  sat  upon  the  papal  throne.  His  death  was  a  strange 
and  painful  conclusion  to  a  life  full  of  work,  full  of  admir- 
able sense  and  intelligence  without  exaggeration  or  pretence. 
He  followed  the  policy  of  his  predecessors  in  desiring  to 
institute  a  Crusade,  one  more  strenuously  called  for  perhaps 
than  any  which  preceded  it,  since  Constantinople  had  now 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  and  Christendom  was 
believed  to  be  in  danger.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  imagine 
that  his  full  and  active  life  should  have  been  much  occupied 
by  this  endeavour :  nor  can  we  think  that  this  great  spectator 
and  observer  of  human  affairs  was  consumed  with  anxiety  in 
respect  to  a  danger  about  which  the  civilised  world  was  so 
careless :  but  in  the  end  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have  taken 
it  up  with  tragical  earnestness,  perhaps  out  of  compunction 
for  previous  indifference.  The  impulse  which  once  moved 
whole  nations  to  take  the  cross  had  died  out ;  and  not  even 
the  sight  of  the  beautiful  metropolis  of  Eastern  Christianity 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  infidel,  and  so  splendid  a  Chris- 
tian temple  as  St.  Sophia  turned  into  a  mosque  had  power  to 
rouse  Europe.  The  King  of  Hungary  was  the  only  monarch 
who  showed  any  real  energy  in  the  matter,  feeling  his  own 
safety  imperilled,  and  Venice,  also  for  the  same  reason,  was 
the  only  great  city ;  and  except  in  these  quarters  the  remon- 
strances and  entreaties  of  Pius  had  no  success.  In  these 
circumstances  the  -Pope  called  his  court  about  him  and  an- 
nounced to  them  the  plan  he  had  formed,  a  most  unlikely 
plan  for  such  a  man,  yet  possible  enough  if  there  was  any 
remorseful  sense  of  carelessness  in  the  past.  The  Duke  of 
Burgundy  had  promised  to  go  if  another  prince  would  join 
him.  The  Pope  determined  that  in  the  absence  of  any  other 
he  himself  would  be  that  prince.  Old  as  he  was,  and  sick, 
and  no  warrior,  and  perhaps  with  but  little  of  the  zeal  which 
makes  such  a  self-devotion  possible,  he  would  himself  go 
forth  to  repel  the  inftdel.  "  We  do  not  go  to  fight,"  he  said, 
with  faltering  voice.  "We  will  imitate  those  who,  when 


558  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

Israel  fought  against  Anialek,  prayed  on  the  mountain. 
We  will  stand  on  the  prow  of  our  ship  or  upon  some  hill, 
and  with  the  holy  Eucharist  before  our  eyes,  we  will  ask 
from  our  Lord  victory  for  our  soldiers."  After  a  pause  of 
alarm  and  astonishment  the  Cardinals  consented,  and  such 
preparations  as  were  possible  were  made.  It  was  published 
throughout  all  Christendom  that  the  Pope  was  to  sail  from 
Ancona  at  a  certain  date,  and  that  every  one  who  could  pro- 
vide for  the  expenses  of  the  journey  should  meet  him  there. 
He  invited  the  old  Doge  of  Venice  to  join  with  himself  and 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  also  an.  old  man.  "We  shall  be 
three  old  men,"  he  said,  "  and  our  trinity  will  be  aided  by 
the  Trinity  of  Heaven."  A  kind  of  sublimity  was  in  the 
suggestion,  a  sublimity  almost  trembling  on  the  borders  of 
the  ridiculous ;  for  the  enterprise  was  no  longer  one  which 
accorded  with  the  spirit  of  the  time,  and  all  was  hesitation 
and  difficulty.  A  miscellaneous  host  crowded  to  Ancona, 
where  the  Pope,  much  suffering,  was  carried  in  his  litter, 
quite  unfit  for  a  long  journey ;  but  the  most  of  them  had  no 
money  and  had  to  be  sent  back ;  and  the  Venetian  galleys 
engaged  to  transport  those  who  were  left  did  not  arrive  till 
the  pilgrims  had  waited  long,  and  were  worn  out  with  delay 
and  confusion.  They  arrived  at  last  a  day  or  two  before 
Pope  Pius  died,  when  he  was  no  longer  capable  of  moving 
—  and  with  his  death  the  ill-fated  Crusade  fell  to  pieces 
and  was  heard  of  no  more.  It  was  the  most  curious  end,  in 
an  enthusiasm  founded  upon  anxious  calculation,  of  a  man 
who  was  never  an  enthusiast,  whose  eyes  were  always  too 
clear-sighted  to  permit  him  to  be  led  away  by  feeling,  a  man 
of  letters  and  of  thought,  rather  than  of  romantic-solemn 
enterprises  or  the  zeal  of  a  martyr.  That  he  was  a  kind  of 
martyr  to  the  strong  conviction  of  a  danger  which  threatened 
Christendom,  and  the  forlorn  hope  of  repelling  it,  there  can 
be  no  doubt. 

Pius  II.  was  succeeded  in  1464  by  Paul  II.,  also  in  his 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     559 

way  a  man  of  more  than  usual  ability  and  note.  He  was  a 
Venetian,  the  nephew  of  the  last  Venetian  Pope,  Eugeriius  ; 
and  it  was  he  who  built,  to  begin  with,  the  fine  palace  still 
called  the  Palazzo  Venezia,  with  which  all  visitors  to  Eome 
are  so  well  acquainted.  It  was  built  for  his  own  residence 
during  his  Cardinalate,  and  remained  his  favourite  dwelling, 
a  habitation  still  very  much  more  in  the  centre  of  everything, 
as  we  say,  than  the  remote  and  stately  Vatican.  The  reader 
will  easily  recall  the  imposing  appearance  of  this  fine  build- 
ing, placed  at  the  end  of  the  straight  street  —  the  chief  in 
Home  —  in  which  were  run  the  many  races  which  formed 
part  of  the  carnival  festivities,  a  recent  institution  in 
Pope  Paul's  day.  The  street  was  called  the  Corso  in  conse- 
quence ;*  and  it  is  not  long  since  the  last  of  these  races,  one 
of  horses  without  riders,  was  abolished.  The  Palazzo  Vene- 
zia commanded  the  long  straight  street  from  its  windows, 
and  all  the  humours  and  wonders  of  the  town,  in  which  the 
Pope  took  pleasure.  It  was  Paul's  fate  to  make  himself  an 
implacable  enemy  in  the  often  contemned,  but  —  as  regards 
the  place  in  history  of  either  pope  or  king  —  all-important 
class  of  writers,  which  it  must  have  seemed  ridiculous  in- 
deed for  a  Sovereign  Pontiff  to  have  kept  terms  with,  on 
account  of  any  power  in  their  hands.  But  this  was  a  short- 
sighted conclusion,  unworthy  the  wisdom  of  a  Pope.  And 
the  result  of  the  Pontiff's  ill-treatment  of  the  historian 
Platina,  to  whom  we  are  so  much  indebted,  especially  for  the 
lives  of  those  Popes  who  were  his  contemporaries,  has  been 
a  lasting  stigma  upon  his  character,  which  the  researches 
of  the  impartial  critics  of  a  later  age  have  shown  to  be 
partly  without  foundation,  but  which  until  quite  recently 
was  accepted  by  everybody.  In  this  way  a  writer  has  a 
power  which  is  almost  absolute.  We  have  seen  in  our  own 
days  a  conspicuous  instance  of  this  in  the  treatment  by  Mr. 
Froude  of  the  life  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  Numbers  of  Carlyle's 
friends  made  instant  protest  against  the  view  taken  by  his 


560  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

biographer ;  but  they  did  so  in  evanescent  methods  —  in 
periodical  literature,  the  nature  of  which  is  to  die  after  it 
has  had  its  day  —  while  a  book  remains.  Very  likely  many 
of  Pope  Paul's  friends  protested  against  the  coolly  ferocious 
account  of  his  life  given  by  the  aggrieved  and  revengeful 
author ;  but  it  is  only  quite  recently,  in  the  calm  of  great 
distance,  that  people  have  come  to  think  —  charitably  in 
respect  to  Pope  Paul  II.  —  that  perhaps  Platina's  strictures 
might  not  be  true. 

Platina,  however,  had  great  provocation.  He  was  one  of 
the  disciples  of  the  famous  school  of  Humanists,  the  then 
new  school  of  learning,  literature,  and  criticism,  which  had 
arisen  under  the  papacy  and  patronage  of  Pope  Nicolas  V., 
and  had  continued  to  exist,  though  with  less  encourage- 
ment, under  his  successors.  Pius  II.  had  not  been  their 
patron  as  Nicolas  was,  but  he  had  not  been  hostile  to  them, 
and  his  tastes  were  all  of  a  kind  congenial  to  their  work. 
But  Paul  looked  coldly  upon  the  group  of  contemptuous 
scholars  who  had  made  themselves  into  an  academy,  and 
vapoured  much  about  classical  examples  and  the  superiority 
of  ancient  times.  He  had  no  quarrel  with  literature,  but  he 
persuaded  himself  to  believe  that  the  academy  which  talked 
and  masqueraded  under  classic  names,  and  played  with 
dangerous  theories  of  liberty,  and  criticism  of  public  pro- 
ceedings, was  a  nest  of  conspirators  and  heretics  scheming 
against  himself.  There  was  no  foundation  whatever  for  his 
fears,  but  that  mattered  little  in  those  arbitrary  days.  This 
is  Platina's  own  account  of  the  matter : 

"  When  Pius  was  dead  and  Paul  created  in  his  place,  he  had  no 
sooner  grasped  the  keys  of  Peter,  than  he  proceeded  —  whether  in 
consequence  of  a  promise  to  do  so,  or  because  the  decrees  and  proceed- 
ings of  Pius  were  odious  to  him  —  to  dismiss  all  the  officials  elected  by 
Pius,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  useless  and  ignorant  (as  he  said)  : 
and  deprived  them  of  their  dignity  and  revenues  without  permitting 
them  to  say  a  word  in  their  own  defence,  though  they  were  men  who 
for  their  erudition  and  doctrine  had  been  gathered  together  from  all 
the  ends  of  the  world,  and  attracted  to  the  court  of  Rome  by  the 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  IL,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.    561 

promise  of  great  reward.  The  College  was  full  of  men  of  letters  and 
virtuous  persons  learned  in  the  law  both  divine  and  human.  Among 
them  were  poets  and  orators  who  gave  no  less  ornament  to  the  court 
than  they  received  from  it.  Paul  sent  them  all  away  as  incapable  and 
as  strangers,  and  deprived  them  of  everything,  although  those  who  had 
bought  their  offices  were  allowed  to  retain  them.  Those  who  suffered 
most  attempted  to  dissuade  him  from  this  intention,  and  I,  who  was 
one  of  them,  begged  earnestly  that  our  cause  might  be  committed 
to  the  judge  of  the  Rota.  Then  he  fixed  on  me  his  angry  eyes.  '  So,' 
he  said,  '  thou  wouldst  appeal  to  other  judges  against  the  decision  we 
have  made  !  Know  ye  not  that  all  justice  and  law  are  in  the  casket  of 
our  bosom  ?  Thus  I  will  it  to  be.  Begone,  all  of  you !  for,  whatever 
you  may  wish  I  am  Pope,  and  according  to  my  pleasure  can  make  and 
unmake.' " 

After  hearing  this  determined  assertion  of  right,  the  dis- 
placed scholars  withdrew,  but  continued  to  plead  their  cause 
by  urgent  letters,  which  ended  at  last  in  an  unwise  threat  to 
make  the  continental  princes  aware  how  they  were  treated, 
and  to  bring  about  the  Pope's  ears  a  Council,  to  which  he 
would  be  obliged  to  give  account.  The  word  Council  was 
to  a  Pope  what  the  red  flag  is  to  a  bull,  and  in  a  transport 
of  rage  Paul  II.  threw  Platina  into  prison.  He  never  in  his 
life  did  a  more  foolish  thing.  The  historian  was  kept  in 
confinement  for  two  years,  and  passed  one  long  winter  with- 
out fire,  subjected  to  every  hardship;  but  finally  was  set 
free  by  the  intercession  of  Cardinal  Gonzaga,  and  remained, 
by  order  of  the  Pope,  under  observation  in  Rome,  where 
watching  with  a  vigilant  eye  all  that  went  on,  he  laid  up  his 
materials  for  that  brief  but  scathing  biography  of  Paul  II. 
which  forms  one  of  the  keenest  effects  in  his  work,  and 
from  which  the  Pope's  memory  has  never  recovered.  It  is 
a  dangerous  thing  to  provoke  a  man  of  letters  who  has  a 
keen  tongue  and  a  gift  of  recollection,  especially  in  those 
days  when  such  men  were  not  so  many  as  now. 

Nevertheless  Platina  did  a  certain  justice  to  his  perse- 
cutor. "He  built  magnificently,"  he  says,  "splendidly  in 
St.  Marco,  and  in  the  Vatican."  The  Church  of  St.  Marco 
is  close  to  the  Palazzo  Venezia  where  Paul  chiefly  lived ;  he 
had  taken  his  title  as  Cardinal  from  his  native  saint.  Both 
2  o 


562  THE  MAKEHS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP, 

in  St.  Peter's  and  in  the  Vatican  he  carried  on  the  works 
begun  by  his  predecessors,  and  though  he  was  unkind  to 
the  scholars,  he  was  not  so  in  every  case.  "  He  expended 
his  money  liberally  enough,"  says  Platina,  "giving  freely 
to  poor  Cardinals  and  bishops,  and  to  princes  and  persons 
of  noble  houses  when  cast  out  of  their  homes,  and  especially 
to  poor  women  and  widows,  and  the  sick  who  had  no  one 
else  to  think  of  them.  And  he  also  took  great  trouble  to 
secure  that  corn  and  other  things  necessary  to  life  should 
be  furnished  in  abundance,  and  at  lower  prices  than  had 
been  known  ever  before."  These  were  good  and  noble  quali- 
ties which  his  enemy  did  not  attempt  to  disguise. 

The  special  service  done  by  Pope  Paul  to  the  city  would 
seem,  however,  to  have  been  the  restoration  of  some  of 
those  ancient  monuments  which  belonged  to  imperial  Eome, 
of  which  none  of  his  predecessors  had  made  much  account. 
If  he  still  helped  himself  freely,  like  them,  from  the  great 
reservoir  of  the  Colosseum,  he  bestowed  an  attention  and 
care,  which  they  had  not  dreamed  of,  upon  some  of  the 
great  works  of  classic  art,  the  arches  of  Titus  and  of  Septi- 
mus Severus  in  particular,  and  the  famous  statue  of  Marcus 
Aurelius.  M.  Muntz  comments  with  much  spirit  on  the 
reason  why  this  Pope's  works  of  restoration  have  been  so 
little  celebrated.  His  taste  was  toward  sculpture  rather 
than  painting.  "To  the  eyes  of  the  world,"  says  the  his- 
torian of  the  arts,  "the  smallest  fresco  is  of  more  account 
than  the  finest  monuments  of  architecture,  or  of  sculpture. 
Nicolas  V.  did  better  for  his  fame  in  engaging  Fra  Angelico 
than  in  undertaking  the  reconstruction  of  St.  Peter's.  Pius 
II.  owes  a  sort  of  posthumous  celebrity  to  the  paintings  in 
the  library  of  the  cathedral  of  Sienna." 

The  same  classical  tastes  of  which  he  thus  gave  token 
made  Pope  Paul  a  great  collector  of  bronzes,  cameos,  medals, 
intaglios,  the  smaller  precious  objects  of  ancient  art;  the 
love  of  which  he  was  the  first  to  bring  back  as  a  special 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     563 

study  and  pursuit.  His  collection  of  these  was  wonderful 
for  his  time,  and  great  for  any  time.  All  the  other  adorn- 
ments of  ancient  art  were  dear  to  him,  and  his  palace, 
which,  after  all,  is  his  most  complete  memorial  in  Rome, 
was  adorned  like  a  bride  with  every  kind  of  glory  in  carved 
and  inlaid  work,  in  vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  embroideries 
and  tapestries.  He  had  the  still  more  personal  and  indi- 
vidual characteristic  of  a  love  for  fine  clothes,  which  the 
gorgeous  costumes  of  the  popedom  permitted  him  to  indulge 
in  to  a  large  extent :  and  jewels,  which  he  not  only  wore 
like  an  Eastern  prince,  but  kept  about  him  unset  in  drawers 
and  cabinets  for  his  private  delight,  playing  with  them,  as 
Platina  tells  us,  in  the  silent  hours  of  the  night.  Some 
part  at  least  of  these  magnificent  tastes  arose  no  doubt 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  himself  a  magnificent  specimen 
of  manhood,  so  distinguished  in  personal  appearance  that 
he  had  the  na'ive  vanity  of  suggesting  the  name  of  Formosus 
for  himself  when  elected  Pope,  though  he  yielded  the  point 
to  the  scandalised  remonstrances  of  the  Cardinals.  This 
simplicity  of  self-admiration,  so  undoubting  as  to  be  almost 
a  moral  quality,  no  doubt  gave  meaning  to  the  glorious 
mitres  and  tiara  encrusted  with  the  richest  jewels,  which 
it  gave  him  so  much  pleasure  to  wear,  and  which  take  rank 
with  the  other  great  embellishments  of  Rome,  though  their 
object  was  more  personal  than  official.  The  habits  of  his 
life  were  strange,  for  he  slept  during  the  day,  and  per- 
formed the  duties  of  life  during  the  night,  the  reason 
assigned  for  this  being  that  he  was  tormented  by  a  cough 
which  prevented  him  from  sleeping  at  the  usual  hours. 
"  It  was  difficult  to  come  to  speech  of  him,"  Platina  says, 
for  this  reason.  "  And  when,  after  long  waiting,  he  opened 
the  door,  you  were  obliged  rather  to  listen  than  to  speak ; 
for  he  was  very  copious  and  long  in  speaking.  In  every- 
thing he  desired  to  be  thought  astute,  and  therefore  his 
conversation  was  in  very  intricate  and  ambiguous  language. 


564  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.        [CHAP. 

He  liked  many  sorts  of  viands  on  his  table,  all  of  the  worst 
taste ;  and  took  much  pleasure  in  eating  melons,  crawfish, 
pastry,  fish,  and  salt  pork,  from  which,  I  believe,  came  the 
apoplexy  from  which  he  died."  Thus  the  prejudices  of  his 
enemy  penetrated  the  most  private  details  of  the  Pope's 
life.  The  venom  of  hatred  defeats  itself  and  becomes 
ridiculous  when  carried  so  far. 

His  fine  collection  was  seized  by  his  successor  and  broken 
up,  as  is  the  fate  of  such  treasures ;  and  his  works  in  St. 
Peter's,  as  we  shall  see,  had  much  the  same  fate,  along  with 
the  great  works  of  his  predecessor  for  the  embellishment  of 
the  same  building,  all  of  which  perished  or  were  set  aside 
in  the  fever  of  rebuilding  which  ensued.  But  there  is  still 
a  sufficient  memorial  of  him  in  the  sombre  magnificence  of  his 
Venetian  palace,  to  recall  to  us  the  image  of  a  true  Renais- 
sance Pope,  mingling  the  most  exquisite  tastes  with  the 
rudest,  the  perfection  of  personal  vanity  —  for  he  loved  to 
see  himself  in  a  procession,  head  and  shoulders  over  all  the 
people  —  with  the  likings  of  a  gondolier.  Thus  we  see  him 
in  the  records  of  his  contemporaries,  watching  from  his  win- 
dows the  strange  sports  in  the  long  street  newly  named  the 
Corso,  races  of  men  and  of  horses,  and  carnival  processions 
accompanied  by  all  the  cumbrous  and  coarse  humour  of  the 
period ;  or  a  stranger  sight  still,  seated  by  night  in  his  cabi- 
net turning  over  his  wealth  of  sparkling  stones,  enjoying  the 
glow  of  light  in  them  and  twinkle  of  many  colours,  while  the 
big  candles  flared,  or  a  milder  light  shone  from  the  beaks  of 
the  silver  lamps.  Notwithstanding  which  strange  humours, 
tastes,  and  vanities,  he  remains  in  all  these  records  a  striking 
and  remarkable  figure,  no  intellectualist,  but  an  effective  and 
notable  man. 

It  is  not  the  intention  of  these  chapters  to  enter  at  all  into 
the  political  life  of  the  Popes  of  this  period.  They  were  still 
a  power  in  Christendom,  perhaps  no  less  so  that  the  Papacy 
had  ceased  to  maintain  those  great  pretensions  of  being  the 


PIAZZA  COLONNA. 


To  face  page  564. 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  IL,  SIXTUS  IV.    567 

final  arbiter  in  all  disputes  among  the  nations.  But  the 
papal  negotiations,  as  always,  came  to  very  little  when  not 
aided  by  the  events  which  are  in  no  man's  hand.  Matthias 
of  Hungary,  though  supported  by  all  the  influence  and  coun- 
sels of  Pope  Paul,  made  little  head  against  the  heretical 
George  Podiebrad  of  Bohemia,  until  death  suddenly  over- 
took that  prince,  and  left  a  troubled  kingdom  without  a 
head,  at  the  mercy  of  the  invaders,  an  event  such  as  con- 
stantly occurred  to  overturn  all  combinations  and  form  the 
crises  of  history  under  a  larger  providence  than  that  of 
human  effort.  And  Paul  no  more  than  Pius  could  move 
Christendom  against  the  Turk,  or  form  again,  when  all  its 
elements  had  crumbled,  and  the  inspiration  of  enthusiasm 
was  entirely  gone,  a  new  crusade.  So  far  as  our  purpose 
goes,  however,  the  Venetian  Palace,  the  Church  of  St.  Marco 
attached  to  it,  and  certain  portions  of  the  Vatican,  better 
represent  the  life  of  this  Pope,  to  whom  the  picturesque 
circumstances  of  his  life  and  the  rancour  of  a  disappointed 
man  of  letters  have  given  a  special  place  of  his  own  in  the 
long  line,  than  any  summary  we  could  give  of  the  agitated 
sea  of  continental  politics.  The  history  of  Rome  was  work- 
ing up  to  that  climax,  odious,  dazzling,  and  terrible,  to  which 
the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  with  all  its  luxury,  its  splendour, 
and  its  vice,  brought  the  great  city,  and  even  the  Church 
so  irrevocably  bound  to  it.  Nicolas,  Pius,  and  Paul  at  the 
beginning  of  that  period,  yet  but  little  affected  by  its  worst 
features,  give  us  a  pause  of  satisfaction  before  we  get 
further.  They  were  very  different  men.  Pope  Nicolas, 
with  his  crowd  of  copyists  forming  a  ragged  regiment  after 
him,  and  the  noise  of  all  the  workshops  in  his  ears ;  and 
Paul,  alone  in  his  chamber  pouring  from  one  hand  to 
another  the  stream  of  glowing  and  sparkling  jewels  which 
threw  out  radiance  like  the  waterways  of  his  own  Venice 
under  the  light,  afford  images  as  unlike  as  it  is  possible  to 
conceive ;  while  the  wise  and  thoughtful  Pius,  with  those 


568  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERX  ROME.         [CHAP. 

eyes  "  which,  had  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mortality,"  stands 
over  both,  the  perennial  spectator  and  commentator  of  the 
world.  They  were  all  of  one  mind  to  glorify  Rome,  to  make 
her  a  wonder  in  the  whole  earth,  as  Jerusalem  had  been,  if 
not  to  pave  her  streets  with  gold,  yet  to  line  them  with  noble 
edifices  more  costly  than  gold,  and  to  bnild  and  adorn  the  first 
of  Christian  churches,  the  shrine  to  which  every  Christian 
came.  Alas !  by  that  time  it  was  beginning  to  be  visible  that 
all  Christians  would  not  long  continue  to  come  to  the  one 
shrine,  that  the  pictorial  age  of  symbols  and  representations 
was  dying  away,  and  that  Rome  had  not  learned  at  all  how 
to  meet  that  great  revolution.  It  was  not  likely  to  be  met 
by  even  the  most  splendid  restoration  of  the  fated  city,  any 
more  than  the  necessities  of  the  people  were  to  be  met  by 
those  other  resurrections  of  institutions  dead  and  gone,  at- 
tempted by  Rienzi,  and  his  still  less  successful  copyist  Por- 
caro  ;  but  how  were  these  men  to  know  ?  They  did  their 
best,  the  worst  of  them  not  without  some  noble  meaning,  at 
least  at  the  beginning  of  their  several  careers ;  but  they  are 
all  reduced  to  their  place,  so  much  less  important  than  they 
believed,  by  the  large  sweep  of  history,  and  the  guidance  of 
a  higher  hand. 

Paul  II.  died  in  August  1471.  Another  order  of  man  now 
succeeded  these  remarkable  personages,  the  first  of  the  line 
of  purely  secular  princes,  men  of  the  world,  splendid,  un- 
principled, and  more  or  less  vicious,  although  in  this  case 
it  is  once  more  a  peasant,  without  so  much  as  a  surname, 
Sixtus  IV.,  who  takes  his  place  in  the  scene,  and  who  has  left 
his  name  more  conspicuously  than  any  of  his  predecessors 
upon  the  later  records  of  Eome.  So  far  as  the  reader  is 
concerned,  the  inscription  at  the  end  of  the  life  of  Pope 
Paul  is  a  more  melancholy  one  than  anything  that  concerns 
that  Pope.  "  Fin  qui,  scrisse  il  Platina,"  says  the  legend. 
We  miss  in  the  after-records  his  individual  touch,  the  hand 
of  the  contemporary,  in  which  the  frankness  of  the  chroni- 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     569 

cler  is  modified  by  the  experience  and  knowledge  of  an 
educated  mind.  The  work  of  Panvinio,  scriba  del  Senato 
epopolo  Romano,  who  completes  the  record,  is  without  the 
same  charm. 

We  have  said  that  Pope  Sixtus  IV.  was  a  man  without  a 
surname,  Francesco  of  Savona,  his  native  place  furnishing 
his  only  patronymic :  but  there  was  soon  found  for  him  — 
probably  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  nephews  who  took  so 
large  a  place  in  his  life  —  a  name  which  bore  some  credit, 
that  of  a  family  of  gentry  in  which  it  is  said  the  young 
monk  had  fulfilled  the  duties  of  tutor  in  the  beginning  of 
his  career.  By  what  imaginary  pedigree  this  was  brought 
about  we  are  not  told  ;  but  it  is  unlikely  that  the  real  della 
Koveres  would  reject  the  engrafting  of  a  great  Pope  into 
their  stock,  and  it  soon  became  a  name  to  conjure  with 
throughout  Italy.  Although  he  also  vaguely  made  pro- 
posals about  a  Crusade,  and  languidly  desired  to  drive 
back  the  Turk,  he  was  a  man  much  more  interested  in  the 
internal  squabbles  of  Italy,  and  in  his  plans  for  endowing 
and  establishing  his  nephews,  than  in  any  larger  purpose. 
But  he  was  also  a  man  of  boundless  energy  and  power,  cooped 
up  for  the  greater  part  of  his  life,  but  now  bursting  forth 
like  the  strong  current  of  a  river.  Whether  it  was  from  a 
natural  inclination  towards  beauty  and  splendour,  or  because 
he  saw  it  to  be  the  best  way  in  which  to  distinguish  himself 
and  make  his  own  name  as  well  as  that  of  his  city  glorious, 
matters-  little  to  the  result.  He  was,  in  the  fullest  sense  of 
the  words,  one  of  the  chief est  of  the  Popes  who  made  the 
modern  city  of  Rome,  as  still  existing  and  glorious  in  the 
sight  of  all  the  world. 

It  was  still  a  confused  and  disorderly  place,  in  which 
narrow  streets  and  tortuous  ways*,  full  of  irregularities  and 
projections  of  all  kinds,  threaded  through  the  large  and 
pathetic  desert  of  the  ancient  city,  leaving  a  rim  of  ruin 
round  the  too-closely  clustered  centre  of  life  where  men 


570  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

crowded  together  for  security  and  warmth  after  the  custom 
of  the  mediaeval  age  —  when  Sixtus  began  to  reign;  and 
this  it  was  which  specially  impressed  King  Ferdinand  of 
Naples  when  he  paid  his  visit  to  the  Pope  in  the  year  1475, 
and  .had  to  be  led  about  by  Cardinals  and  other  high  offi- 
cials, sometimes,  it  would  appear,  by  his  Holiness  himself, 
to  see  the  sights.  The  remarks  he  made  upon  the  town 
were  very  useful  if  not  quite  civil  to  the  seat  of  Roman  in- 
fluence and  authority.  Infessura  gives  this  little  incident 
vividly,  so  that  we  almost  see  the  streets  with  their  outer 
stairs  crowded  with  bystanders,  their  balconies  laden  with 
bright  tapestries  and  fair  women,  and  every,  projecting  gable 
and  pillared  doorway  pushing  out  into  the  pavement  at  its 
own  unfettered  will.  The  course  of  sightseeing  followed  by 
the  King,  conducted  by  the  Pope  and  Cardinals,  is  fully  set 
forth  in  these  quaint  pages.  King  Ferrante  came  to  make 
his  devotions  olio  perdono,  probably  the  Jubilee  of  1475,  and 
offered  to  each  of  the  three  churches  of  St.  Peter,  St.  John 
Lateran,  and  St.  Paul,  a  pallium  of  gold  for  each,  besides 
many  other  gifts. 

"  He  went  over  all  Rome  to  see  the  great  buildings,  and  to  Santa 
Maria  Kotonda,  and  the  columns  of  Antonius  and  of  Trajan  ;  and 
every  man  did  him  great  honour.  And  when  he  had  seen  all  these 
things  he  turned  back  to  the  palace,  and  talking  to  Pope  Sixtus  said 
that  he  (the  Pope)  could  never  be  the  lord  of  the  place,  nor  ever  truly 
reign  over  it,  because  of  the  porticoes  and  balconies  which  were  in  the 
streets  ;  and  that  if  it  were  ever  necessary  to  put  men  at  arms  in 
possession  of  Rome  the  women  in  the  balconies,  with  small  bombs, 
could  make  them  fly ;  and  that  nothing  could  be  more  easy  than  to 
make  barricades  in  the  narrow  streets ;  and  he  advised  him  to  clear 
away  the  balconies  and  the  porticoes  and  to  widen  the  streets,  under 
pretence  of  improving  and  embellishing  the  city.  The  Pope  took  this 
advice,  and  as  soon  as  it  was  possible  cast  down  all  those  porticoes,  and 
balconies,  and  widened  the  ways  under  pretence  of  improving  them. 
And  the  said  King  remained  there  three  days,  and  then  went  away." 

This  story  and  the  spirit  in  which  the  suggestion  was 
made  recall  Napoleon's  grim  whiff  of  grapeshot,  and  the 
policy  which  has  made  the  present  Paris  a  city  of  straight 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  IL,  PAUL  IL,  SIXTUS  IV.     571 

lines  which  a  battery  of  artilley  could  clear  in  a  moment,  in- 
stead of  all  the  elbows  and  corners  of  the  old  picturesque 
streets.  Pope  Sixtus  appreciated  the  suggestion,  knowing 
how  undisciplined  a  city  he  had  to  deal  with,  and  what  a  good 
thing  it  might  be  to  fill  up  those  hornets'  nests,  with  all  their 
capabilities  of  offence.  Probably  a  great  many  picturesque 
dwellings  perished  in  the  destruction  of  those  centres  of 
rebellion,  which  recall  to  us  so  vividly  the  scenes  in  which 
Eienzi  the  tribune  fluttered  through  his  little  day,  and  which 
were  continually  filled  with  the  rustle  and  tumult  of  an 
abounding  populace.  We  cannot  be  so  grateful  to  King 
Ferdinand,  or  so  full  of  praise  for  this  portion  of  the  work 
of  Pope  Sixtus,  as  were  his  contemporaries,  though  no  doubt 
it  gave  to  us  almost  all  the  leading  thoroughfares  we  know. 
It  was  -reserved  for  his  kinsman-Pope  to  strike  Eome  the 
severest  stroke  that  was  possible,  and  commit  the  worst  of 
iconoclasms ;  but  we  do  not  doubt  that  the  destruction  of 
the  porches,  and  stairheads,  and  balconies  must  have  greatly 
diminished  the  old-world  attraction  of  a  city — in  which, 
however,  it  was  the  mediaeval  with  all  its  irregularities  that 
was  the  intruder,  while  what  was  new  in  the  hand  of  Sixtus 
and  his  architects  linked  itself  in  sympathy  with  the  most 
ancient,  the  originator  yet  survivor  of  all. 

It  was  with  the  same  purpose  and  intentions  that  the 
Pope  built  in  place  of  the  Ponte  Eotto  —  which  had  lain 
long  in  ruins  —  a  bridge  over  the  Tiber,  which  he  called  by 
his  own  name,  and  which  still  remains,  affording  a  second 
means  of  reaching  the  Borgo  and  the  Sanctuaries,  as  a  relief 
to  the  bridge  of  St.  Angelo,  upon  which  serious  accidents 
were  apt  to  happen  by  reason  of  the  crowd.  Both  the 
chroniclers,  Infessura  and  Panvinio,  the  continuator  of 
Platina,  describe  the  bridge  as  being  a  rebuilding  of  the 
actual  Ponte  Eotto  itself.  "  It  was  his  intention  to  mend 
this  bridge,"  says  the  former  authority,  and  he  takes  the 
opportunity  to  point  out  the  presumptuous  and  proud  at- 


572  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

tempt  of  Sixtus  to  preserve  his  own  name  and  memory  by 
it,  a  fault  already  committed  by  several  of  his  predecessors ; 
"he  accordingly  descended  to  the  river  and  placed  in  the 
foundations  by  the  said  bridge  a  square  stone  on  which  was 
written:  Sixtus  Quartus  Pontifex  Maximus  fecit  fieri  sub 
Anno  Domini  1473.  Behind  this  stone  the  Pope  placed 
certain  gold  medals  bearing  his  head,  and  afterwards  built 
that  bridge,  which  after  this  was  no  longer  called  Ponte 
Rotto,  but  Ponte  Sisto,  as  is  written  on  it."  It  is  a  won- 
derful point  of  view,  commanding  as  it  does  both  sides  of 
the  river,  St.  Peter's  on  one  hand  and  the  Palatine  on  the 
other,  with  all  the  mass  of  buildings  which  are  Rome.  The 
Scritte  on  the  Ponte  Sisto  begs  the  prayers  of  the  passer-by 
for  its  founder,  who  certainly  had  need  of  them  both  for 
his  achievements  in  life  and  in  architecture.  There  is  still, 
however,  a  Ponte  Rotto  further  up  the  stream. 

Besides  the  work  of  widening  the  streets,  which  neces- 
sitated much  pulling  down  and  rebuilding  of  houses,  and 
frequent  encounters  with  the  inhabitants,  who  naturally 
objected  to  proceedings  so  summary  —  and  removing  the 
excrescences,  balconies,  and  porticoes,  "which  occupied, 
obscured,  and  made  them  ugly  (brutte)  and  disorderly:'7 
Pope  Sixtus  rebuilt  the  great  Hospital  of  the  Santo  Spirito, 
which  had  fallen  into  disrepair,  providing  shelter  in  the 
meantime  for  the  patients  who  had  to  be  removed  from  it, 
and  arranging  for  the  future  in  the  most  grandfatherly 
way.  This  great  infirmary  is  also  a  foundling  hospital, 
and  there  was  a  large  number  of  children  to  provide  for. 
"Seeing  that  many  children  both  male  and  female  along 
with  their  nurses  were  thrown  out  on  the  world,  he  assigned 
them  a  place  where  they  could  live,  and  ordained  that  the 
marriageable  girls  should  be  portioned  and  honestly  mar- 
ried, and  that  the  others  who  would  not  marry  should 
become  the  nurses  of  the  sick.  He  also  arranged  that 
there  should  be  (in  the  new  hospital)  more  honourable 


ii.j     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     573 

rooms  and  better  furnished  for  sick  gentle-folks,  so  that 
they  might  be  kept  separate  from  the  common  people " : 
an  arrangement  which  is  one  of  the  things  (like  so  many 
ancient  expedients)  on  which  we  now  pride  ourselves  as  an. 
invention  of  our  own  age,  though  the  poor  gentle-folks  of 
Pope  Sisto  were  not  apparently  made  to  pay  for  their  privi- 
leges. This  hospital  in  some  of  its  details  is  considered  the 
most  meritorious  of  the  Pope's  architectural  work. 

Sixtus  IV.  was  a  man  of  the  most  violent  temper,  which 
led  him  into  some  curious  scenes  which  have  become  his- 
torical. When  one  of  the  unfortunate  proprietors  of  a 
house  which  stood  in  the  way  of  his  improvements  resisted 
the  workmen,  Sixtus  had  him  cast  into  prison  on  the 
moment,  and  savagely  stood  by  to  see  the  house  pulled 
down  before  he  would  leave  the  spot.  He  delighted,  the 
chroniclers  say,  in  the  ruins  he  made.  A  more  tragic 
instance  of  his  rage  was  the  judicial  murder  of  the  Proto- 
notary  Colonna,  who  paid  with  his  life  for  crossing  the  will 
of  the  Pope.  But  this  masterful  will  and  impetuous  tem- 
per secured  an  incredible  swiftness  in  the  execution  of  his 
work. 

The  prudent  suggestion  of  Ferdinand  resulted  in  the 
clearance  of  those  straight  streets  which  led  from  the  Fla- 
minian  Gate  —  now  called  the  Porta  del  Popolo,  which 
Sixtus  built  or  restored,  as  well  as  the  church  of  Sta.  Maria 
del  Popolo,  which  stands  close  by  —  to  all  the  principal 
places  in  the  city ;  the  Corso  being  the  way  to  the  Capitol, 
the  Kipetta  to  St.  Angelo  and  the  Borgo.  He  repaired  once 
more  the  church  and  ancient  palace  of  the  Lateran,  which 
had  so  long  been  the  home  of  the  Popes,  and  was  still  for- 
mally their  diocesan  church  to  which  they  went  in  state 
after  their  election.  It  is  unnecessary,  however,  to  give  here 
a  list  of  the  many  churches  which  he  repaired  or  rebuilt. 
His  work  was  Rome  itself,  and  pervaded  every  part,  from 
St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican  to  the  furthest  corners  of  the 


574  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

city.  The  latter  were,  above  all,  the  chief  objects  of  his 
care,  and  he  seems  to  have  taken  up  with  even  a  warmer 
ardour,  if  perhaps  with  a  less  cultivated  intelligence,  the 
plan  of  Nicolas  V.  in  respect  to  the  Palace  at  least.  Like 
him  he  gathered  a  crowd  of  painters,  chiefly  strangers, 
around  him,  so  that  there  is  scarcely  a  great  name  of  the 
time  that  does  not  appear  in  his  lists ;  but  he  managed 
these  great  craftsmen  personally  like  a  slave-driver,  push- 
ing them  on  to  a  breathless  speed  of  execution,  so  that 
the  works  produced  for  him  are  more  memorable  for  their 
extent  than  for  their  perfection. 

The  fame  of  a  sanitary  reformer  before  his  time  seems  an 
unlikely  one  for  Pope  Sixtus,  yet  he  seems  to  have  had  no 
inconsiderable  right  to  it.  Nettare  and  purgare  are  two 
words  in  constant  use  in  the  record  of  his  life.  He  restored 
to  efficient  order  the  Cloaca  Maxima.  He  brought  in,  a 
more  beautiful  office,  the  Acqua  Vergine,  a  name  of  itself 
enough  to  glorify  any  master-builder,  "  remaking,"  says  the 
chronicler,  "  the  aqueducts,  which  were  in  ruins,  from  Monte 
Pincio  to  the  fountain  of  Trevi."  Here  is  perhaps  a  better 
reason  for  blessing  Pope  Sixtus  than  even  his  bridge,  for 
those  splendid  and  abundant  waters  which  convey  coolness 
and  freshness  and  pleasant  sound  into  the  very  heart  of 
Rome  were  brought  hither  by  his  hand,  a  gift  which  may 
be  received  without  criticism,  for  not  upon  his  name  lies 
the  guilt  of  the  prodigious  construction,  a  creation  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  through  which  they  now  flow.  The 
traveller  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  who  takes  his  draught 
of  this  wonderful  unfailing  fountain,  rejoicing  in  the  sparkle 
and  the  flow  of  water  so  crystal-clear  and  cold  even  in  the 
height  of  summer,  and  hoping  to  secure  as  he  does  so  his 
return  to  Rome,  may  well  pour  a  libation  to  Papa  Sisto, 
who,  half  pagan  as  they  all  were  in  those  days,  would  prob- 
ably have  liked  that  form  of  recollection  quite,  as  much  as 
the  prayers  he  invokes  according  to  the  formal  requirements 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     575 

of  piety  and  the  custom  of  the  Church.  However,  they 
found  it  quite  easy  to  combine  the  two  during  that  strange 
age.  The  chief  thing  of  all,  however,  which  perpetuates 
the  name  of  Sixtus  is  the  famous  Sistine  chapel,  although 
its  chief  attraction  is  not  derived  from  anything  ordained 
by  him.  Some  of  the  greatest  names  in  art  were  concerned 
in  its  earlier  decorations  —  Perugino,  Botticelli,  Ghirlandajo, 
along  with  many  others.  Michael  Angelo  was  not  yet, 
neither  had  Raphael  appeared  from  the  Umbrian  bottega 
with  his  charm  of  grace  and  youth.  But  the  Pope  collected 
the  greatest  he  could  find,  and  set  them  to  work  upon  his 
newly-built  walls  with  a  magnificence  and  liberality  which 
deserved  a  more  lasting  issue.  The  reader  will  shiver,  yet 
almost  laugh  with  consternation  and  wonder,  to  hear  that 
several  great  pictures  of  Perugino  were  destroyed  on  these 
walls  by  the  orders  of  another  Pope  in  order  to  make  room 
for  Michael  Angelo.  There  could  not  be  a  more  character- 
istic token  of  the  course  of  events  in  the  Papal  succession, 
and  of  the  wanton  waste  and  destruction  by  one  of  the  most 
cherished  work  of  another. 

Sixtus  was  none  the  less  a  warlike  prince,  struggling  in 
perpetual  conflict  with  the  princes  of  the  other  states,  per- 
haps with  even  a  fiercer  strain  of  ambition,  fighting  for 
wealth  and  position  with  which  to  endow  the  young  men 
who  were  as  his  sons  —  as  worldly  in  his  aims  as  any  Mala- 
testa  or  Sforza,  as  little  scrupulous  about  his  means  of 
carrying  them  out,  shedding  blood  or  at  least  permitting  it 
to  be  shed  in  his  name,  extorting  money,  selling  offices, 
trampling  upon  the  rights  of  other  men.  Yet  amid  all 
these  distractions  he  pursued  his  nobler  work,  not  without 
a  wish  for  the  good  of  his  people  as  well  as  for  his  own 
ends,  making  his  city  more  habitable,  providing  a  lordly 
habitation  for  the  sick,  pouring  floods  of  life-giving  water 
into  the  hot  and  thirsty  place.  The  glory  of  building  may 
have  many  elements  of  vanity  in  it  as  well  as  the  formation 


576  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

of  galleries  of  art,  and  the  employment  of  all  the  greatest 
art-workmen  of  their  time.  But  ours  is  the  advantage  in 
these  latter  respects,  so  that  we  may  well  judge  charitably 
a  man  who,  in  devising  great  works  for  his  own  honour  and 
pleasure,  has  at  the  same  time  endowed  us,  and  especially 
his  country  and  people,  with  a  lasting  inheritance.  Per- 
haps, even  in  competition  with  these,  it  is  most  to  his  credit 
that  he  fulfilled  offices  which  did  not  so  much  recommend 
themselves  to  his  generation,  and  cleansed  and  cleared  out 
and  let  in  air  and  light  like  any  modern  sanitary  reformer. 
The  Acqua  Vergine  and  the  Santo  Spirito  Hospital  are 
as  fine  things  as  even  a  Botticelli  for  a  great  prince's  fame. 
He  may  even  be  forgiven  the  destruction  of  the  balconies 
and  all  the  picturesque  irregularities  which  form  the  charm 
of  ancient  streets,  in  consideration  of  the  sewerage  and  the 
cleaning  out.  The  pictures,  the  libraries,  and  all  the  more 
beautiful  things  of  life,  in  which  we  of  the  distant  lands 
and  centuries  have  our  share  of  benefit,  are  good  deeds 
which  are  not  likely  to  be  forgotten. 

It  is  however  naturally  the  beautiful  things  of  which 
it  is  most  pleasant  to  think.  The  chroniclers,  whom  we 
love  to  follow,  curiously  enough,  have  nothing  to  say  about 
the  pictures,  perhaps  because  it  was  not  an  art  favoured  by 
the  Romans,  or  which  they  themselves  pursued,  except  in 
its  lower  branches.  Infessura  mentions  a  certain  Antonazzo 
Pintore,  who  was  the  author  of  a  Madonna,  painted  on  the 
wall  near  the  church  of  Sta.  Maria,  below  the  Capitol  at 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  which  on  the  26th  of  June,  in  the  year 
1470,  began  to  do  miracles,  and  was  afterwards  enshrined 
in  a  church  dedicated  to  our  Lady  of  Consolations.  Anto- 
nazzo was  a  humble  Roman  artist,  whose  name  is  to  be  found 
among  the  workmen  in  the  service  of  Pope  Paul  II.,  who 
was  not  much  given  to  pictures.  Perhaps  he  is  mentioned 
because  he  was  a  Roman,  more  likely  because  he  had  the 
good  luck  to  produce  a  miraculous  Madonna.  The  same 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     577 

writer  makes  passing  mention  of  I  Fiorentini,  under  which, 
generic  name  all  the  bottegas  were  included. 

"  He  renewed  the  Palace  of  the  Vatican,  drawing  it  forth 
under  great  colonnades,"  says,  picturesquely,  the  chronicler 
Panvinio,  working  probably  from  Platina's  notes,  "and  mak- 
ing under  his  chapel  a  library  "  :  which  was  the  finest  thing 
of  all,  for  he  there  reinstated  Platina,  who  had  been  kept 
under  so  profound  a  shadow  in  the  time  of  Paul  II.,  and 
called  back  the  learned  men  whom  his  predecessor  had  dis- 
couraged, sending  far  and  near  through  all  Europe  for  books, 
and  thus  enlarging  the  library  begun  by  Pope  Nicolas  which 
is  one  of  the  most  celebrated  which  the  world  possesses, 
and  to  which  he  secured  a  revenue,  "  enough  to  enable  those 
who  had  the  care  of  it  to  live,  and  even  to  buy  more  books." 
This  provision  still  exists,  though  it  is  no  longer  sufficient 
for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  dedicated.  The  Cardinals 
emulated  the  Pope  both  in  palace  and  church,  each  doing 
his  best  to  leave  behind  him  some  building  worthy  of  his 
name.  Ornament  abounded  everywhere  ;  sometimes  rather 
of  a  showy  than  of  a  refined  kind.  There  is  a  story  in 
Vasari  of  how  one  of  the  painters  employed  on  the  Sistine, 
competing  for  a  prize  which  the  Pope  had  offered,  piled  on 
his  colours  beyond  all  laws  of  taste  or  harmony,  and  was 
laughed  at  by  his  fellows  ;  but  proved  the  correctness  of  his 
judgment  by  winning  the  prize,  having  gauged  the  knowl- 
edge and  taste  of  Sixtus  better  than  the  others  whose  at- 
tempt had  been  to  do  their  best  —  a  height  entirely  beyond 
his  grasp. 

All  these  buildings,  however,  were  fatal  to  the  remnants 
still  existing  of  ancient  Eome.  The  Colosseum  and  the 
other  great  relics  of  antiquity  were  still  the  quarries  out 
of  which  the  new  erections  were  built.  The  Sistine  Bridge 
was  founded  upon  huge  blocks  of  travertine  brought  di- 
rectly from  the  ruins  of  the  Colosseum.  The  buildings 
of  the  Imperial  architects  thus  melted  away  as  we  are  told 

2  P 


578  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

now  everything  in  the  world  does,  our  own  bodies  among 
the  rest,  into  new  combinations,  under  a  law  which  if  just 
and  universal  in  nature  is  not  willingly  adopted  in  art.  The 
wonder  is  how  they  should  have  supplied  so  many  succes- 
sive generations,  and  still  remain  even  to  the  extent  they 
still  do.  Every  building  in  Rome  owes  something  to  the 
Colosseum  —  its  stones  were  sold  freely  in  earlier  ages,  and 
carried  off  to  the  ends  of  the  earth;  but  it  has  remained 
like  the  widow's  cruse,  inexhaustible :  which  is  almost  more 
wonderful  than  the  fact  of  its  constant  use. 

There  is  a  picture  in  the  Vatican  gallery,  which  though 
not  one  of  the  highest  merit  is  very  interesting  from  a  his- 
torical point  of  view.  We  quote  the  description*  of  it  from 
Bishop  Creighton. 

"  It  represents  Sixtus  IV.  founding  the  Vatican  library.  The  Pope 
with  a  face  characterised  by  mingled  strength  and  coarseness,  his 
hands  grasping  the  arms  of  his  chair,  sits  looking  at  Platina,  who  kneels 
before  him,  a  man  whose  face  is  that  of  a  scholar,  with  square  jaw, 
thin  lips,  finely  cut  mouth,  and  keen  glancing  eye.  Cardinal  Giuliano 
stands  like  an  official  who  is  about  to  give  a  message  to  the  Pope,  by 
whose  side  is  Pietro  Riario  with  aquiline  nose  and  sensual  chin,  red- 
cheeked  and  supercilious.  Behind  Platina  is  Count  Girolamo  with  a 
shock  of  black  hair  falling  over  large  black  eyes,  his  look  contempt- 
uous and  his  mien  imperious." 

These  were  the  three  men  for  whom  the  Pontiff  fought 
and  struggled  and  soiled  his  hands  with  blood,  and  sold  his 
favour  to  the  highest  bidder.  Giuliano  della  Rovere  and 
Pietro  Riario  were  Cardinals :  Count  Girolamo  or  Jeronimo 
was  worse  —  he  was  of  the  rudest  type  of  the  predatory 
baron,  working  out  a  for  tun  3  for  himself  with  the  sword, 
the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be  the  henchman  of  a  Pope. 
They  were  but  one  step  from  the  peasant  race,  without  dis- 
tinction or  merit  which  had  given  them  birth,  and  all  three 
built  upon  that  rude  stock  the  dissolute  character  and  grasp- 
ing greed  for  money,  acquired  by  every  injustice,  and  ex- 
pended on  every  folly,  which  was  so  common  in  their  time. 
They  were  all  young,  intoxicated  with  their  wonderful  sue- 


ii.]     CALIXTUS  III.,  PIUS  II.,  PAUL  II.,  SIXTUS  IV.     579 

cess  and  with  every  kind  of  extravagance  to  be  provided  for. 
They  made  Rome  glitter  and  glow  with  pageants,  always  so 
congenial  to  the  taste  of  the  people,  seizing  every  opportu- 
nity of  display  and  magnificence.  Infessura  tells  the  story 
of  one  of  these  wonderful  shows,  with  a  mixture  of  admira- 
tion and  horror.  The  Cardinal  of  San  Sisto,  he  tells  us,  who 
was  Pietro  Riario,  covered  the  whole  of  the  Piazza  of  the 
Santi  Apostoli,  and  hung  it  with  cloth  of  arras,  and  above 
the  portico  of  the  church  erected  a  fine  loggia  with  panels 

painted  by  the  Florentines  for  the  f esta  of  San (the 

good  Infessura  forgets  the  name  with  a  certain  contempt  one 
cannot  but  feel  for  the  foreign  painters  and  their  works), 
and  in  front  made  two  fountains  which  threw  water  very 
high,  as  high  as  the  roof  of  the  church.  This  wonderful 
arrangement  was  intended  for  the  delectation  of  the  royal 
guest  Madonna  Leonora,  daughter  of  King  Ferrante  for 
whom  he  and  his  cousin  Girolamo  made  a  great  feast. 

"  After  the  above  banquet  was  seen  one  of  the  finest  things  that 
were  ever  seen  in  Rome  or  out  of  Rome  :  for  between  the  banquet  and 
the  festa,  several  thousands  of  ducats  were  spent.  There  was  erected 
a  buffet  with  so  much  silver  upon  it  as  you  would  never  have  believed 
the  Church  of  God  had  so  much,  in  addition  to  that  which  was  used  at 
table :  and  even  the  things  to  eat  were  gilt,  and  the  sugar  used  to 
make  them  was  without  measure,  more  than  co.uld  be  believed.  And 
the  said  Madonna  Leonora  was  in  the  aforesaid  house  with  many 
demoiselles  and  baronesses.  And  every  one  of  these  ladies  had  a 
washing  basin  of  gold  given  her  by  the  Cardinal.  Oh  guarda !  in  such 
things  as  these  to  spend  the  treasure  of  the  Church  ! " 

Next  year  the  Cardinal  Riario  died  at  twenty-eight,  "  poi- 
soned," Infessura  says :  "  and  this  was  the  end  of  all  our 
fine  festas."  Another  day  it  was  the  layman  among  the 
nephews  who  stirred  all  Rome,  and  the  world  beyond,  with 
an  immeasurable  holiday. 

"On  St.  Mark's  Day,  1746,  the  Count  Jeronimo,  son,  or  nephew  of 
Pope  Sixtus,  held  a  solemn  tournament  in  Navona,  where  were  many 
valiant  knights  of  Italy  and  much  people,  Catalans  and  Burgundians 
and  other  nations ;  and  it  was  believed  that  at  this  festivity  there  were 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  people,  and  it  lasted  over  Friday, 


580  THE  MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [en.  n. 

Saturday,  and  Sunday.  And  there  were  three  prizes,  one  of  which 
was  won  by  Juliano  Matatino,  and  another  by  Lucio  Poncello,  and 
the  third  by  a  man  of  arms  of  the  Kingdom  (Naples,  so  called  until 
very  recent  days),  and  they  were  of  great  value." 

The  Piazza  Navona,  the  scene  of  this  tournament,  was 
made  by  Pope  Sixtus  the  market-place  of  Rome,  where  mar- 
kets were  held  once  a  month,  an  institution  which  still  con- 
tinues. The  noble  Pantheon  occupies  the  end  of  this  great 
square,  as  when  Count  Jeronimo  with  his  black  brows,  mar- 
shalled his  knights  within  the  long  enclosure,  so  fit  for  such 
a  sight.  We  have  now  come  to  a  period  of  history  in  which 
all  the  localities  are  familiar,  and  where  we  can  identify 
every  house  and  church  and  tower. 

"  Sixtus,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  left  nothing  undone  which 
he  saw  to  be  for  the  ornament  or  comfort  of  the  city.  He 
defended  intrepidly  the  cause  of  the  Eomans  and  the  dignity 
of  the  Holy  See."  The  first  of  these  statements  is  more  true 
perhaps  than  the  last ;  and  we  may  forgive  him  his  short- 
comings and  his  nephews  on  that  great  score.  He  ended  his 
reign  in  August  1484,  having  held  the  Pontificate  thirteen 
years. 


FOUNTAIN   OF  TREVI. 


CHAPTER   III. 


JULIUS    II. LEO    X. 

IT  is  happily  possible  to  pass  over  the  succeeding  pon- 
tificates of  Innocent  VIII.  and  Alexander  VI.  These 
Popes  did  little  for  Rome  except,  especially  the  last  of 
them,  to  associate  the  name  of  the  central  city  of  Christen- 
dom with  every  depravity.  The  charitable  opinion  of  later 
historians  who  take  that  pleasure  in  upsetting  all  previous 
notions,  which  is  one  of  the  features  of  our  time,  has  begun 
to  whisper  that  even  the  Bofgias  were  not  so  black  as  they 

581 


582  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN  ROME.         [CHAP. 

were  painted.  But  it  will  take  a  great  deal  of  persuasion 
and  of  eloquence  to  convince  the  world  that  there  is  any- 
thing to  be  said  for  that  name.  Pope  Innocent  VIII.  con- 
tinued the  embellishment  of  the  Vatican,  which  was  his 
own  palace,  and  completed  the  Belvedere,  and  set  Andrea 
Mantegna  to  paint  its  chambers ;  but  this  was  not  more 
than  any  Roman  nobleman  might  have  done  for  his  palace 
if  he  had  had  money  enough  for  decorations,  which  were 
by  no  means  so  costly  in  those  days  as  they  would  be  now, 
and  probably  indeed  were  much  cheaper  than  the  more  mag- 
nificent kinds  of  arras  or  other  decorative  stuffs  fit  for  a 
Pope's  palace.  Alexander,  too,  added  a  splendid  apartment 
for  himself,  still  known  by  his  name ;  and  provided  for  pos- 
sible danger  (which  did  not  occur  however  in  his  day)  by 
making  and  decorating  another  apartment  in  the  castle  of 
St.  Angelo,  whither  he  might  have  retired  and  still  managed 
to  enjoy  himself,  had  Rome  risen  against  him.  But  Rome, 
which  often  before  had  hunted  its  best  Popes  into  the 
strait  confinement  of  that  stronghold,  left  the  Borgia  at 
peace.  We  are  glad  to  pass  on  to  the  next  Pope,  whose 
footsteps,  almost  more  than  those  of  any  other  of  her  mon- 
archs,  are  still  to  be  seen  and  recognised  through  Rome. 
He  gave  more  to  the  city  than  any  one  who  had  preceded 
him,  and  he  destroyed  more  than  any  Pope  before  had  per- 
mitted himself  to  do. 

Julius  II.,  della  Rovere,  the  nephew  of  Pope  Sixtus,  for 
whom  and  for  his  brother  and  cousin  that  Pope  occupied  so 
much  of  his  busy  life,  was  a  violent  man  of  war,  whose 
whole  life  was  occupied  in  fighting,  and  who  neither  had 
nor  pretended  to  have  any  reputation  for  sanctity  or  devo- 
tion. But  passionate  and  unsparing  as  he  was,  and  fiercely 
bent  on  his  own  way,  the  aim  of  his  perpetual  conflicts  was 
at  all  events  a  higher  one  than  that  of  his  uncle,  in  so  far 
that  it  was  to  enrich  the  Church  and  not  his  own  family 
that  he  toiled  and  fought.  He  was  the  centre  of  warlike 


in.]*  JULIUS  II.  — LEO  X.  583 

combinations  all  his  life  —  League  of  Cambrai,  holy  League, 
every  kind  of  concerted  fighting  to  crush  those  who  opposed 
him  and  to  divide  their  goods ;  but  the  portion  of  the  goods 
which  fell  to  the  share  of  Pope  Julius  was  for  the  Church 
and  not  for  the  endowment  of  a  sister's  son.  He  was  not 
insensible  altogether  to  the  claims  of  sister's  sons ;  but  he 
preferred  on  the  whole  the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter,  and 
fought  for  that  with  unfailing  energy  all  round.  There  are 
many  books  in  which  the  history  of  those  wars  and  of  the 
Renaissance  Popes  in  general  may  be  read  in  full,  but  the 
Julius  II.  in  whom  we  are  here  interested  is  not  one  who 
ever  led  an  army  or  signed  an  offensive  league :  it  is  the 
employer  of  Bramante  and  Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael, 
the  choleric  patron  who  threatened  to  throw  the  painter  of 
the  Sistine  chapel  from  his  scaffolding,  the  dreadful  icono- 
clast who  pulled  down  St.  Peter's  and  destroyed  the  tombs 
of  the  Popes,  the  magnificent  prince  who  bound  the  greatest 
artists  then  existing  in  Italy,  which  was  to  say  in  the  world, 
to  his  chariot  wheels,  and  drove  them  about  at  his  will. 
Most  of  these  things  were  good  things,  and  give  a  favour- 
able conception  of  him;  though  not  that  which  was  the 
most  important  of  all. 

How  it  was  that  he  came  to  pull  down  St.  Peter's  no- 
body can  say.  He  had  of  course  the  contempt  which  a 
man,  carried  on  the  highest  tide  of  a  new  movement,  has 
by  nature  for  all  previous  waves  of  impulse.  He  thought 
of  the  ancient  building  so  often  restored,  the  object  of  so 
much  loving  care,  with  all  the  anxious  expedients  employed 
by  past  Popes  to  glorify  and  embellish  the  beloved  interior, 
giving  it  the  warmest  and  most  varied  historical  interest  — 
with  much  the  same  feeling  as  the  respectable  church- 
warden in  the  eighteenth  century  looked  upon  the  piece  of 
old  Gothic  which  had  fallen  into  his  hands.  A  church  of 
the  fourteenth  century  built  for  eternity  has  always  looked 
to  the  churchwarden  as  if  it  would  tumble  about  his  ears  — 


584  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN    ROME.          [CHAP. 

and  his  Herculean  efforts  to  pull  down  an  arch  that  without 
him  would  have  stood  till  the  end  of  time  have  always  been 
interpreted  as  meaning  that  the  ancient  erection  was  about 
to  fall.  Julius  II.  in  the  same  way  announced  St.  Peter's  to 
be  in  a  bad  way  and  greatly  in  need  of  repair,  so  as  scarcely 
to  be  safe  for  the  faithful;  and  Bramante  was  there  all 
ready  with  the  most  beautiful  plans,  and  the  Pope  was  not 
a  patient  man  who  would  wait,  but  one  who  insisted  upon 
results  at  once.  This  church  had  been  for  many  hundreds 
of  years  the  most  famous  of  Christian  shrines;  from  the 
ends  of  the  world  pilgrims  had  sought  its  altars.  The 
tomb  of  the  Apostles  was  its  central  point,  and  many 
another  saint  and  martyr  inhabited  its  sacred  places.  It 
had  seen  the  consecration  of  Emperors,  it  had  held  false 
Popes  and  true,  and  had  witnessed  the  highest  climax  of 
triumph  for  some,  and  for  some  the  last  solemnity  of  death.1 
But  Bramante  saw  in  that  venerable  temple  only  the  foun- 
dations for  a  new  cathedral  after  the  fashion  of  the  great 
Duomo  which  was  the  pride  of  Florence;  and  his  master 
beheld  in  imagination  the  columns  rising,  and  the  vast 
arches  growing,  of  such  an  edifice  as  would  be  the  brag 
of  Christendom,  and  carry  the  glory  of  his  own  name  to 
the  furthest  ends  of  the  earth:  a  temple  all-glorious  in 
pagan  pride,  more  classical  than  the  classics,  adorned  with 
great  statues  and  blank  magnificence  of  pilasters  and  tombs 
rising  up  to  the  roof  —  one  tomb  at  least,  that  of  the  della 
Eoveres,  of  Sixtus  IV.  and  Julius  II.,  which  should  live  as 
long  as  historjr,  and  which,  if  that  proud  and  petulant  fel- 
low Buonarotti  would  but  complete  his  work,  would  be  one 
of  the  glories  of  the  Eternal  City. 

The  ancient  St.  Peter's  would  not  seem  to  have  had  any- 
thing of  the  poetic  splendour  and  mystery  of  a  Gothic  build- 
ing as  understood  in  northern  countries  :  the  rounded  arches 
of  its  facade  did  not  spring  upwards  with  the  lofty  light- 
i  See  the  death  of  Pope  Leo  IX.,  p.  199. 


in.]  JULIUS   II.  — LEO  X.  587 

ness  and  soaring  grace  of  the  great  cathedrals  of  France 
and  Germany.  But  the  irregular  front  was  full  of  interest 
and  life,  picturesque  if  not  splendid.  It  had  character  and 
meaning  in  every  line,  it  was  a  series  of  erections,  carrying 
the  method  of  one  century  into  another,  with  that  art  which 
makes  one  great  building  into  an  animated  and  varied  his- 
tory of  the  times  and  ages  through  which  it  has  passed, 
taking  something  from  each,  and  giving  shelter  and  the 
sense  of  continuance  to  all.  There  is  no  such  charm  as 
this  in  the  most  perfect  of  architectural  triumphs  executed 
by  a  single  impulse.  But  this  was  the  last  quality  in  the 
world  likely  to  deter  a  magnificent  Pope  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  to  whom  unity  of  conception  and  correctness  of 
form  were  of  much  more  concern  than  any  such  imaginative 
interest.  However  Julius  II.  must  not  have  greater  guilt 
laid  upon  him  than  was  his  due.  His  operations  concerned 
only  the  eastern  part  of  the  great  church :  the  facade,  and 
the  external  effect  of  the  building  remained  unchanged  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years ;  while  the  plan  as  now  be- 
lieved, was  that  of  Pope  Nicolas  V.,  only  carried  out  by 
instalments  by  his  successors,  of  whom  Julius  was  one  of 
the  boldest. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  fame  of  his  three  servants,  sublime 
slaves,  whose  names  are  more  potent  still  than  those  of  any 
Pontiff,  that  this  Pope  has  become  chiefly  illustrious.  His 
triumphs  of  fighting  are  lost  from  memory  in  the  pages  of 
the  historians,  where  we  read  and  forget,  the  struggle  he 
maintained  in  Italy,  and  the  transformations  through  which 
that  much  troubled  country  passed  under  his  sway  —  to 
change  again  the  morrow  after,  as  it  had  changed  the  day 
before  the  beginning  of  his  career.  To  be  sure  it  was  he 
wha  finally  identified  and  secured  the  Patrimony  of  St. 
Peter  —  so  that  the  States  of  the  Church  were  not  hence- 
forward lost  and  won  by  a  natural  succession  of  events 
once  at  least  in  the  life  of  every  Pope.  But  we  forget  that 


588  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

fact,  and  all  that  secured  it,  the  tumultuous  chaos  of  Euro- 
pean affairs  being  as  yet  too  dark  to  be  penetrated  by  any 
certainty  of  consolidation.  The  course  of  events  was  in 
large  what  the  history  of  the  fortunes  of  St.  John  Lateran, 
for  example,  was  in  small.  From  the  days  of  Pope  Mar- 
tin V.  until  those  of  Sixtus  IV.  a  change  of  the  clergy 
there  was  made  in  almost  each  pontificate.  Eugenius  IV. 
restored  the  canons  regular,  or  monks :  who  were  driven 
forth  by  Calixtus  III.,  again  restored  by  Paul  II.,  and  so 
forth,  until  at  length  Sixtus,  bringing  back  the  secular 
priests  for  the  third  time,  satisfied  the  monks  by  the  gift 
of  his  new  church  of  Sta.  Maria  della  Pace.  The  revolu- 
tion of  affairs  in  Italy  was  almost  as  regular,  and  it  is  only 
with  an  effort  of  the  mind  that  the  reader  can  follow  the 
endless  shifting  of  the  scenes,  the  combinations  that  dis- 
perse and  reassemble,  the  whirl  of  events  for  ever  coming 
round  again  to  the  point  from  which  they  started.  But 
when  we  put  aside  the  Popes  and  the  Princes  and  the 
stamping  and  tumult  of  mail-clad  warriors  —  and  the  crowd 
opening  on  every  side  gives  us  to  see  a  patient,  yet  high- 
tempered  artisan  mounting  day  by  day  his  lofty  platform, 
swung  up  close  to  the  roof,  where  sometimes  lying  on  his 
back,  sometimes  crouched  upon  his  knees,  he  made  roof 
and  architrave  eloquent  with  a  vision  which  centuries  can- 
not fade,  nor  any  revolution,  either  of  external  affairs  or 
of  modes  of  thought,  lessen  in  interest,  a  very  different 
feeling  fills  the  mind,  and  the  thoughts,  which  were  sick 
and  weary  with  the  purposeless  and  dizzy  whirl  of  fact, 
come  back  relieved  to  the  consoling  permanence  of  art. 
The  Pope  who  mounted  imperious,  a  master  of  the  world, 
on  to  those  dizzy  planks,  admired,  and  blasphemed  and 
threatened  in  a  breath;  but  with  no  power  to  move  the 
sturdy  painter,  who,  it  was  well  known,  was  a  man  impos- 
sible to  replace.  "  When  will  you  have  done  ?  "  said  the 
Pope.  "When  I  can,"  replied  the  other.  The  Pontiff 


in.]  JULIUS  IT.  — LEO   X.  589 

might  rage  and  threaten,  but  the  Florentine  painted  on 
steadily ;  and  Pope  Julius,  on  the  tremulous  scaffolding 
up  against  the  roof  of  his  uncle's  chapel,  is  better  known 
to  the  world  by  that  scene  than  by  all  his  victories.  Uncle 
and  nephew,  both  men  of  might,  warlike  souls  and  strong, 
that  room  in  the  Vatican  has  more  share  in  their  fame  than 
anything  else  which  they  achieved  in  the  world. 

Another  and  a  gentler  spirit  comes  in  at  the  same  time 
to  glorify  this  fortunate  Pope.  His  predecessors  for  some 
time  back  had  each  done  something  for  the  splendour  of 
the  dwelling  which  was  their  chief  residence,  even  the 
least  interested  adding  at  least  a  loggia,  a  corridor,  a  villa 
in  the  garden,  as  has  been  seen,  to  make  the  Vatican  glori- 
ous. Alexander  VI.  had  been  the  last  to  embellish  and 
extend  the  more  than  regal  lodging  of  the  Pontiffs;  but 
Julius  II.  had  a  hatred  of  his  predecessor  which  all  honest 
men  have  a  right  to  share,  and  would  not  live  in  the  rooms 
upon  which  the  Borgias  had  left  the  horror  of  their  name. 
He  went  back  to  the  cleaner  if  simpler  apartments  which 
Nicolas  V.  had  built  and  decorated  by  the  hands  of  the 
elder  painters.  Upon  one  of  these  he  set  young  Eaphael 
to  work,  a  young  man  with  whom  there  was  likely  to  be  no 
such  trouble  as  that  he  had  with  the  gnarled  and  crabbed 
Florentine,  who  was  as  wilful  as  himself.  Almost  as  soon 
as  the  young  painter  had  begun  his  gracious  work  the  de- 
lighted Pope  perceived  what  a  treasury  of  glory  he  had  got 
in  this  new  servant.  What  matter  that  the  new  painter's 
master,  Perugino,  had  been  there  before  him  with  other 
men  of  the  highest  claims  ?  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to 
break  up  these  old-fashioned  masters,  to  clear  them  away 
from  the  walls,  to  leave  it  all  to  Raphael.  We  shiver  and 
wonder  at  such  a  proof  of  enthusiasm.  Was  the  young 
man  willing  to  get  space  for  his  smooth  ethereal  pictures 
with  all  their  heavenly  grace,  at  such  a  price  ?  But  if  he 
made  any  remonstrance  —  which  probably  he  did,  for  we 


590  THE   MAKERS  OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

see  him  afterwards  in  much,  trouble  over  St.  Peter's,  and 
the  destruction  carried  on  there  —  his  imperious  master 
took  little  notice.  Julius  was  one  of  the  men  who  had  to 
be  obeyed,  and  he  was  always  as  ready  to  pull  down  as  to 
build  up.  The  destruction  of  St.  Peter's  on  one  hand,  and 
all  those  pictures  on  the  other,  prove  the  reckless  and  mas- 
terful nature  of  the  man,  standing  at  nothing  in  a  matter 
on  which  he  had  set  his  heart.  In  later  days  the  pictures 
of  Perugino  on  the  wall  of  the  Sistine  chapel  were  demol- 
ished, as  has  been  said,  to  make  place  for  the  Last  Judg- 
ment of  Michael  Angelo ;  but  Pope  Julius  by  that  time 
had  passed  into  another  sphere. 

Most  people  will  remember  the  famous  portrait  of  this 
Pope  by  Raphael,  one  of  the  best  known  pictures  in  the 
world.  He  sits  in  his  chair,  an  old  man,  his  head  slightly 
bowed,  musing,  in  a  pause  of  the  endless  occupations  and 
energy  which  made  his  life  so  full.  The  portrait  is  quite 
simple,  but  full  of  dignity  and  a  brooding  power.  We  feel 
that  it  would  not  be  well  to  rouse  the  old  lion,  though  at 
the  moment  his  repose  is  perfect.  Raphael  was  at  his  ease 
in  the  peacefulness  of  his  own  soul  to  observe  and  to  record 
the  powerful  master  whose  fame  he  was  to  have  so  great  a 
share  in  making.  It  would  have  been  curious  to  have  had 
also  the  Julius  whom  Michael  Angelo  knew. 

He  died  in  the  midst  of  all  this  great  work,  while  yet  the  \ 
dust  of  the  downfall  of  St.  Peter's  was  in  the  air.  Had  it  been 
possible  that  he  could  have  lived  to  see  the  new  and  splendid 
temple  risen  in  its  place,  we  could  better  understand  the 
wonderful  hardihood  of  the  act;  but  it  would  be  almost 
inconceivable  how  even  the  most  impious  of  men  could  have 
executed  such  an  impulse,  leaving  nothing  but  a  partial  ruin 
behind  him  of  the  great  Shrine  of  Christendom,  did  we  not 
know  that  a  whole  line  of  able  rulers  had  carried  on  the  plan 
to  gradual  completion.  It  was  not  till  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  later  that  the  new  St.  Peter's  in  its  present  form,  vast 


in.]  JULIUS  II.  — LEO   X.  591 

and  splendid,  but  apparently  framed  to  look,  to  the  first 
glance,  as  little  so  as  possible,  stood  complete,  to  the  ad- 
miration of  the  world.  In  the  violence  of  destruction  a 
great  number  of  the  tombs  of  the  Popes  perished,  by  means 
of  that  cynical  carelessness  and  profanity  which  is  more 
cruel  than  any  hostile  impulse.  Julius  preserved  the  grave 
of  his  uncle  Sixtus,  where  he  was  himself  afterwards  laid, 
not  in  his  own  splendid  tomb  which  had  been  in  the  making 
for  many  years,  and  which  is  now  to  be  seen  in  the  church 
of  San  Pietro  in  Yincoli  from  which  he  took  his  Cardinal's 
title.  He  had  therefore  little  good  of  that  work  of  art  as 
he  well  deserved,  and  it  was  itself  sadly  diminished,  cut 
down,  and  completed  by  various  secondary  hands ;  but  it  is 
kept  within  the  ken  of  the  spectator  by  Michael  Angelo's 
Moses  and  some  other  portions  of  his  original  work,  though  it 
neither  enshrines  the  body  nor  marks  the  resting  place  of 
its  imperious  master.  Julius  died  in  1513,  "  more  illustrious 
in  military  glory  than  a  Pope  ought  to  be."  Panvinio  says : 
"He  was  of  great  soul  and  constancy,  and  a  powerful  defender 
of  all  ecclesiastical  things :  he  would  not  suffer  any  offence, 
and  was  implacable  with  rebels  and  contumacious  persons. 
He  was  such  a  one  as  could  not  but  be  praised  for  having 
with  so  much  strength  and  fidelity  preserved  and  increased 
the  possessions  of  the  Church,  although  there  are  a  few 
to  whom  it'  appears  that  he  was  more  given  to  arms  than 
was  becoming  a  holy  Pope."  "On  the  21st  of  February 
1513,  died  Pope  Julius,  at  nine  hours  of  the  night,"  says 
another  chronicler,  Sebastiano  Branca ;  "  he  held  the  papacy 
nine  years,  three  months,  and  twenty-five  days.  He  was 
from  Savona :  he  acquired  many  lands  for  the  Church :  no 
Pope  had  ever  done  what  Pope  Julius  did.  The  first  was 
Faenza,  the  others  Forli,  Cervia,  Ravenna,  Rimini,  Parma, 
Piacenza,  and  Arezzo.  He  gained  them  all  for  the  Church, 
nor  ever  thought  of  giving  them  to  his  own  family.  Pesaro 
he  gave  to  the  Duke  of  Urbino,  his  nephew,  but  no  other. 


592  THE   MAKERS  OF   MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

Thirty-three  cardinals  died  in  his  time .  And  he  caused  the 
death  in  war  of  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  people.'7 
There  could  not  be  a  more  grim  summary.  ^ 

It  is  curious  to  remark  that  the  men  who  originated  the  / 
splendour  of  modern  Rome,  who  built  its  noblest  churches 
and  palaces,  and  emblazoned  its  walls  with  the  noblest 
works  of  art,  and  filled  its  libraries  with  the  highest  luxury 
of  books,  were  men  of  the  humblest  race,  of  peasant  origin, 
born  to  poverty  and  toil.  Thomas  of  Sarzana,  Pope  Nicolas^/ 
V.,  Francesco  and  Giuliano  of  Savona,  Popes  Sixtus  IV.  and 
Julius  II. :  these  men  were  born  without  even  the  distinc- 
tion of  a  surname,  in  the  huts  where  poor  men  lie,  or  more 
humbly  still  in  some  room  hung  high  against  the  rocky 
foundations  of  a  village,  perched  upon  a  cliff,  after  the  fash- 
ion of  Italy.  It  was  they  who  set  the  fashion  of  a  magnifi-. 
cence  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  greatest  princes  of  their  time. 

It  was  not  so,  however,  with  the  successor  of  Julius  II., 
the  Pope  in  whose  name  all  the  grandeur  and  magnificence 
of  Rome  is  concentrated,  and  of  whom  we  think  most  im- 
mediately when  the  golden  age  of  ecclesiastical  luxury  and 
the  splendour  of  art  is  named.  Leo  X.  was  as  true  a  son 
of  luxury  as  they  were  of  the  soil.  The  race  of  Medici  has 
always  been  fortunate  in  its  records.  The  greatest  painters 
of  the  world  have  been  at  its  feet,  encouraged  and  cherished 
and  tyrannised  over.  Literature  such  as  was  in*  the  highestj 
esteem,  in  those  days  flattered  and  caressed  and  fawned  upon 
them.  Lorenzo,  somewhat  foolishly  styled  in  history  the 
Magnificent,  —  in  f orgetf ulness  of  the  fact  that  il  Magnifico 
was  the  common  title  of  a  Florentine  official, — is  by  many 
supposed  to  be  the  most  conspicuous  and  splendid  character 
in  the  history  of  Florence.  And  Leo  X.  bears  the  same 
renown  in  the  records  of  Papal  Rome.  We  will  not  say 
that  he  was  a  modern  Nero  fiddling  while  Rome  was  burn- 
ing, for  he  showed  himself  in  many  ways  an  unusually 
astute  politician,  and  as  little  disposed  to  let  slip  any  tern- 


m.]  JULIUS  II.  — LEO  X.  595 

poral  advantage  as  his  fighting  predecessors  —  but  the  spec- 
tacle is  still  a  curious  one  of  a  man  expending  his  life  and 
his  wealth  (or  that  of  other  people)  in  what  was  even  the 
most  exquisite  and  splendid  of  decorations,  such  wonders 
of  ornamentation  as  Raphael's  frescoes  —  while  the  Papacy 
itself  was  being  assailed  by  the  greatest  rebellion  ever 
raised  against  it.  To  go  on  painting  the  walls  while  the 
foundations  of  the  building  are  being  ruined  under  your 
feet  and  at  any  moment  may  fall  about  your  ears,  reducing 
your  splendid  ornaments  to  powder,  is  a  thing  which  gives 
the  most  curious  sensation  to  the  looker  on.  The  world  did 
not  know  in  those  days  that  even  to  an  institution  so  corrupt 
superficially  as  the  Church  of  Rome  the  ancient  promise 
stood  fast,  and  not  only  the  gates  of  hell,  but  those  more 
like  of  heaven,  should  not  prevail  against  her.  Out  of  Italy 
it  was  believed  that  the  Church  which  had  but  lately  been 
ruled  over  by  a  Borgia,  and  which  was  admittedly  full  of 
wickedness  in  high  places,  must  go  down  altogether  under 
the  tremendous  blow.  A  great  part  of  the  world  indeed 
went  on  believing  so  for  a  century  or  two.  But  in  the 
midst  of  that  almost  universal  conviction  nothing  can  be 
more  curious  than  to  see  the  life  of  Papal  Rome  going  on  as 
if  nothing  had  happened,  and  young  Raphael  and  all  his 
disciples  coming  and  going,  cheerful  as  the  day,  about  the 
great  empty  chambers  which  they  were  making  into  a  won- 
der of  the  earth.  Michael  Angelo,  it  is  true,  in  grim  dis- 
content hewed  at  those  huge  slaves  of  his  in  Florence, 
working  wonderful  thoughts  into  their  great  limbs ;  but  all 
that  Roman  world  flowed  on  in  brightness  and  in  glory 
under  skies  untouched  by  any  threatening  of  catastrophe. 
The  Italian  chroniclers  scarcely  so  much  as  mention  the 
beginnings  of  the  Reformation.  "  At  that  time  in  the  fur- 
thest part  of  Germany  the  abominable  and  infamous  name 
of  Martin  Luther  began  to  be  heard,"  says  one.  The  ele- 
phant which  Emmanuel  of  Portugal  sent  to  his  Holiness, 


596  THE  MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 

and  which  was  supposed  to  be  a  thousand  years  old,  takes 
up  as  much  space.  The  sun  shone  on  in  Rome.  The 
painters  sang  and  whistled  at  their  work,  and  their  sublime 
patron  went  and  came,  and  capped  verses  with  Venetian 
Bembo,  and  the  unique  Aretino.  They  were  not,  it  would 
seem,  in  the  least  afraid  of  Luther,  nor  even  cognisant  of 
him  except  in  a  faint  and  far-off  way.  He  was  so  absurd" 
as  to  object  to  the  sale  of  indulgences.  Now  the  sale  of/ 
indulgences  was  not  to  be  defended  in  theory,  as  all  these 
philosophers  knew.  But  to  buy  off  the  penances  which 
otherwise  they  would  at  all  events  have  been  obliged  to 
pretend  to  do,  was  a  relief  grateful  to  many  persons  who 
were  not  bad  Christians,  besides  being  good  Catholics.  Per- 
haps, indeed,  in  the  gross  popular  imagination  these  indul- 
gences might  have  come  to  look  like  permissions  to  sin,  as 
that  monster  in  Germany  asserted  them  to  be ;  but  this  did 
not  really  alter  their  true  character,  any  more  than  other 
popular  mistakes  affected  doctrine  generally.  And  how_ 
to  get  on  with  that  huge  building  of  St.  Peter's,  at  which-. 

Ulihnumerable  workmen  were  labouring  year  after  year,  and . 

which  was  the  most  terrible  burden  upon  the  Papal  funds, 
without  that  method  of  wringing  stone  and  mortar  and  gild- 
ing and  mosaic  out  of  the  common  people  ?  Pope  Leo  took 
it  very  easily.  Notwithstanding  the  acquisitions  of  Pope 
Julius,  and  the  certainty  with  which  the  historians  assure 
us  that  from  his  time  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter  was  well 
established  in  the  possession  of  Rome,  some  portion  of  it 
had  been  lost  again,  and  had  again  to  be  recovered  in  the 
days  of  his  successor.  That  was  doubtless  more  important 
than  the  name,  nefando,  execrabile  of  the  German  monk. 
And  so  the  wars  went  on,  though  not  with  the  spirit  and 
relish  which  Julius  II.  had  brought  into  them.  Leo  X.  had 
no  desire  to  kill  anybody.  When  he  was  compelled  to  do  it 
he  did  it  quite  calmly  and  inexorably  as  became  a  Medici ; 
but  he  took  no  pleasure  in  the  act.  If  Luther  had  fallen 


m.]  JULIUS   II.  — LEO   X.  597 

into  his  hands  the  Curia  would  no  doubt  have  found  some 
means  of  letting  the  pestilent  fellow  off.  A  walk  round  the 
loggie  or  the  stanze  where  the  painters  were  so  busy,  and 
where  Raphael,  a  born  gentleman,  would  not  grumble  as 
that  savage  Buonarotti  did,  at  being  interrupted,  but  would 
pause  and  smile  and  explain,  put  the  thought  of  all  trouble- 
some Germans  easily  out  of  the  genial  potentate's  head.  It 
was  the  Golden  Age ;  and  Eome  was  the  centre  of  the  world 
as  was  meet,  and  genius  toiled  ^untiringly  for  the  embellish- 
ment of  everything;  and  such  clever  remarks  had  never 
been  made  in  any  court,  such  witty  suggestions,  such  fine 
language  used  and  subtle  arguments  held,  as  those  of  all  the 
scholars  and  all  the  wits  who  vied  with  each  other  for  the 
ear  and  the  glance  of  Pope  Leo.  The  calm  enjoyment  of 
life  over  a  volcano  was  never  exhibited  in  such  perfection 
before. 

We  need  not  pause  here  to  enumerate  or  describe  those 
works  which  every  visitor  to  Rome  hastens  to  see,  in  which 
the  benign  and  lovely  art  of  Raphael  has  lighted  up  the 
splendid  rooms  of  the  Vatican  with  something  of  the  light 
that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore.  We  confess  that  for  our- 
selves one  little  picture  from  the  same  hand,  to  be  met  with 
here  and  there,  and  often  far  from  the  spot  where  it  was 
painted,  outvalues  all  those  works  of  art ;  but  no  one  can 
dispute  their  beauty  or  importance.  Pope  Leo  did  not  by 
so  much  as  the  touch  of  a  pencil  contribute  to  their  perfec- 
tion, yet  they  are  the  chief  glory  of  his  time,  and  the  chief 
element  in  his  fame.  He  made  them  in  so  far  that  he  pro- 
vided the  means,  the  noble  situation  as  well  as  the  more 
vulgar  provision  which  was  quite  as  necessary,  and  he  has 
therefore  a  right  to  his  share  of  the  applause  —  by  which  he 
is  well  rewarded  for  all  he  did ;  for  doubtless  the  payment 
of  the  moment,  the  pleasure  which  he  sincerely  took  in  them, 
and  the  pride  of  so  nobly  taking  his  share  in  the  lasting 
illumination  of  Rome  were  a  very  great  recompense  in 


598  THE  MAKERS  OF   MODERN  ROME.          [CHAP. 

themselves,  without  the  harvest  he  has  since  reaped  in 
the  applause  of  posterity.  Nowadays  we  do  not  perhaps 
so  honour  the  patron  of  art  as  people  were  apt  to  do  in 
the  last  century.  And  there  are,  no  doubt,  many  now  who 
worship  Raphael  in  the  Vatican  without  a  thought  of  Leo. 
Still  he  is  worthy  to  be  honoured.  He  gave  the  young 
painter  a  free  hand,  believing  in  his  genius  and  probably 
attracted  by  his  more  genial  nature,  while  holding  Michael 
Angelo,  for  whom  he  seems  ^always  to  have  felt  a  certain 
repugnance,  at  arm's  length. 

We  will  not  attempt  to  point  out  in  Raphael's  great  mural 
paintings  the  flattering  allusions  to  Leo's  history  and 
triumph  which  critics  find  there,  nor  yet  the  high  purpose 
with  which  others  hold  the  painter  to  have  been  moved  in 
those  great  works.  Bishop  Creighton  finds  a  lesson  in  them, 
which  is  highly  edifying,  but  rather  beyond  what  we  should 
be  disposed  to  look  for.  "  The  life  of  Raphael,"  he  says, 
"expresses  the  best  quality  of  the  spirit  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  its  belief  in  the  power  of  culture  to  restore 
unity  to  life  and  implant  serenity  in  the  soul.  It  is  clear 
that  Raphael  did  not  live  for  mere  enjoyment,  but  that  his 
time  was  spent  in  ceaseless  activity  animated  by  high  hopes 
for  the  future."  How  this  may  be  we  do  not  know:  but 
lean  rather  to  the  opinion  that  Raphael,  like  other  men  of 
great  and  spontaneous  genius,  did  what  was  in  him  and  did 
his  best,  with  little  ulterior  purpose  and  small  thought  about 
the  power  of  culture.  It  was  his,  we  think,  to  show  how 
art  might  best  illustrate  and  with  the  most  perfect  effect  the 
space  given  him  to  beautify,  with  a  meaning  not  unworthy 
of  the  gracious  work,  but  no  didactic  impulse.  It  was  his 
to  make  these  fine  rooms,  and  the  airy  lightness  of  the 
brilliant  loggie  beautiful,  with  triumphant  exposition  of  a 
theme  full  of  pictorial  possibilities.  But  what  it  should 
have  to  do  with  Luther,  or  how  the  one  should  counter- 
balance the  other,  it  is  difficult  to  perceive.  Goethe  on  the 


in.]  JULIUS  II.  — LEO  X.  599 

other  hand  declares  that  going  to  Raphael's  loggie  from  the 
Sistine  chapel  "  we  could  scarcely  bear  to  look  at  them. 
The  eye  was  so  educated  and  enlarged  by  those  grand  forms 
and  the  glorious  completeness  of  all  the  parts  that  it  could 
take  no  pleasure  "  in  works  so  much  less  important.  Such 
are  the  differences  of  opinion  in  all  ages.  It  is  the  glory 
of  this  period  of  Roman  history  that  at  a  time  when  the 
Apostolic  See  had  lost  so  much,  and  when  all  its  great 
purposes,  its  noble  ideals,  its  reign  of  holiness  and  inspired 
wisdom  had  perished  like  the  flower  of  the  fields  —  when 
all  that  Gregory  and  Innocent  had  struggled  their  lives  long 
to  attain  had  dissolved  like  a  bubble  :  when  the  Popes  were 
no  longer  holy  men,  nor  distinguished  by  any  great  and 
universal  aim,  but  Italian  princes  like  others,  worse  rather 
than  better  in  some  cases :  there  should  have  arisen,  with 
a  mantle  of  glory  to  hide  the  failure  and  the  horror  and 
the  scorn,  these  two  great  brethren  of  Art  —  the  one  rugged, 
mournful,  self-conscious,  bowed  down  by  the  evil  of  the 
time,  the  other  all  sweetness  and  gladness,  an  angel  of  light, 
divining  in  his  gracious  simplicity  the  secrets  of  the  skies. 
Leo  the  Pope  was  no  such  noble  soul.  He  was  only  an 
urbane  and  skilful  Medici,  great  to  take  every  advantage  of 
the  divine  slaves  that  were  ready  for  his  service  —  using 
them  not  badly,  encouraging  them  to  do  their  best,  if  not 
for  higher  motives  yet  to  please  him,  the  Sommo  Pontefice, 
surely  the  best  thing  that  they  could  hope  for ;  and  to  win 
such  share  of  the  ducats  which  came  to  him  from  the  sale 
of  the  offices  of  the  Vatican,  the  cardinals'  hats,  the  papal 
knighthoods,  and  other  trumpery,  as  might  suffice  for  all 
their  wants.  He  sold  these  and  other  things,  indulgences 
for  instance,  sown  broadcast  over  the  face  of  the  earth  and 
raising  crops  of  a  quite  different  kind.  But  on  the  other 
hand  he  never  sold  a  benefice.  He  remitted  the  tax  on  salt ; 
and  he  gave  liberally  to  whoever  asked  him,  and  enjoyed 
life  with  all  his  heart,  in  itself  no  bad  quality. 


600 


THE   MAKERS   OF  MODERN   ROME.          [CHAP. 


"The  pontificate  of  Leo  was  the  most  gay  and  the  most  happy  that 
Rome  ever  saw,"  says  the  chronicler.  "  Being  much  enamoured  of 
building  he  took  up  with  a  great  soul  the  making  of  San  Pietro,  which 
Julius,  with  marvellous  art,  had  begun.  He  ennobled  the  palace  of  the 
Vatican  with  triple  porticoes,  ample  and  long,  of  the  most  beautiful 
fabrication,  with  gilded  roofs  and  ornamented  by  excellent  pictures. 
He  rebuilt  almost  from  the  foundations  the  church  of  our  Lady  of  the 
Monte  Ccelio,  from  which  he  had  his  title  as  cardinal,  and  adorned  it 
with  mosaics.  Finally  there  was  nothing  which  during  all  his  life  he 


A   BRIC-A-BRAC   SHOP. 

had  more  at  heart  or  more  ardently  desired  than  the  excellent  name  of 
liberal,  although  it  was  the  wont  ordinarily  of  all  the  others  to  turn 
their  backs  upon  that  virtue  of  liberality,  and  to  keep  far  from  it.  He 
judged  those  unworthy  of  high  station  who  did  not  with  large  and 
benign  hand  disperse  the  gifts  of  fortune,  and  above  all  those  which 
were  acquired  by  little  or  no  fatigue.  But  while  he  in  this  guise  gov- 
erned Rome,  and  all  Italy  enjoyed  a  gladsome  peace,  he  was  by  a  too 
early  death  taken  from  this  world  although  still  in  the  flower  and  height 
of  his  years." 

He  died  forty-five  years  old  on  December  1,  1521. 
The  great  works  which,  one  and  another  of  the  Popes  thus 
left  half  done  were  completed  —  St.   Peter's  by  Sixtus  V, 


in.]  JULIUS  II.  — LEO   X.  601 

1590,  and  Paul  V.  1615.  The  Last  Judgment  completing 
the^i^tin^-^h^rpel^wa^finished  by  Michael  Angelo  in  1541 
under  Clement  VII.  and  Paul  III.  And  thus  the  Rome  of 
our  days  —  the  Rome  which  not  as  pilgrims,  but  as  persons 
living  according  to  the  fashion  of  our  own  times,  which  com- 
pels us  to  go  to  and  fro  over  all  the  earth  and  see  whatever 
is  to  be  seen,  we  visit  every  year  in  large  numbers  —  was  left 
more  or  less  as  it  is  now,  for  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
Much  has  been  done  since,  and  is  doing  still  every  day  to 
make  more  intelligible  and  more  evident  the  memorials  of 
an  inexhaustible  antiquity  —  but  in  the  Rome  of  the  Popes, 
the  Rome  of  Christendom,  History  has  had  but  little  and 
Art  not  another  word  to  say. 


THE    END. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


ADELAIDE  of  Susa,  262,  269. 

Agnes,  Empress,  217,  233,  237,  279; 
Hildebrand  becomes  adviser  to, 
•202;  alienated  from  Hildebrand, 
214 ;  renounces  the  world,  219. 

Alaric,  108,  119,  121. 

Albigenses,  many  sects  among,  355; 
Pope  Innocent's  attitude  towards, 
357 ;  missionaries  sent  to,  ib. ;  cru- 
sade against  them,  359-361. 

Albina,  17,  18,  89. 

Albornoz,  Cardinal,  480,  488. 

Alexander  II.,  205,  215,  224. 

Alexander  VI.,  581,  582,  589. 

Allegories,  Rienzi's  painted,  413-416, 
419. 

Ambrose,  48. 

Angelico,  Fra,  546,  549. 

Angelo,  Michael,  588,  595,  598. 

Apollinaris,  the  heresy  of,  47,  48. 

Aqueducts  restored  by  Sixtus  IV., 
574. 

Arimbaldo,  500 ;  joins  Bienzi  in  his 
enterprise,  489. 

Aristocracy,  Roman,  its  position  at 
the  end  of  the  4th  century,  3,  4,  5 ; 
luxuriousness  of  the  nobles,  5, 6, 7; 
and  of  the  women,  7,  8;  its  char- 
acteristics in  the  14th  century, 
396,  397.  See  Nobles. 

Art,  the  Popes  as  patrons  of,  515 ;  that 
of  Rome  imported  from  abroad, 
516 ;  art  workshops  in  Rome,  546. 

Artists,  Roman,  412,  413,  420;  em- 
ployed upon  the  Sistine  chapel, 
575 ;  Julius  II.  as  a  patron  of,  482, 
583,  589. 


Asella,  18,  21,  89;  Jerome's  letters 
to,  72,  75,  76. 

Athanasius,  his  life  of  St.  Antony  of 
the  desert,  15;  his  reception  at 
Rome,  16;  and  in  the  household 
of  Albina,  17;  Melania's  visit  to, 
33. 

Attila,  120. 

Augsburg,  Council  of,  261 ;  German 
nobles  impatient  to  open,  274, 
275. 

Augustine,  Gregory's  instructions 
to,  for  the  making  of  converts, 
156;  and  for  pastoral  work,  ib., 
157,  158;  sent  on  his  mission  to 
England,  161, 162. 

BALE,  Council  of,  525,  531. 

Bavaria,  Duke  of,  260. 

Beatrice  of  Tuscany,  204,  216,  234, 

256. 
Benedict,  Pope,  and  Fra  Monozello, 

395. 

Benedict,  order  of,  126, 131. 
Benedict  I.,  138. 

Benedict  X.    See  Mincio,  Bishop. 
Berengarius  of  Tours,  his   heresy, 

279,  290. 
Bethlehem,  convents  founded  at,  by 

Jerome  and  Paula,  82. 
Bible,  Innocent  III.,  on  the  interpre- 
tation of,  by  sectaries,  357. 
Blsesilla,  23,  55,  67 ;  her  conversion, 

58 ;  her  death  and  funeral,  63. 
Bollandists,  131. 
Book  collector,  Thomas  (Nicolas  V.) 

as,  529,  534. 


605 


606 


INDEX. 


Borgias,  515,  581. 

Borgo,  538;  sanctity  of  the  spot, 
539,  540;  wall  built  to  enclose, 
541 ;  buildings  erected  afterwards 
within  the  enclosure,  ib. 

Botticelli,  575. 

Bowdeu,  Mr.,  his  life  of  Gregory 
VII.,  515. 

Bramante,  584. 

Browning,  Robert,  420,  421. 

Brunhild,  Queen,  169. 

Bruno,  Bishop,  appointed  Pope,  190; 
acts  on  Hildebrand's  advice,  191, 
192;  his  triumphant  election  at 
Rome,  193.  See  Leo  IX. 

Buildings,  ancient,  Gregory  accused 
of  destroying,  176, 177 ;  regarded  as 
stone-quarries,  242,  517,  577 ;  re- 
storation of,  Book  IV.,  passim. 

Buono  Stato,  secret  society  formed 
for  the  establishment  of,  423,  424 ; 
demonstration  by  the  conspirators, 
425,  426;  its  rules,  426,  427.  See 
Rienzi. 

CADALOUS,  anti-Pope,  216-218. 

Caesarea,  Melania  arrested  at,  35. 

Calixtus  III.,  552,  553. 

Cammora  (City  Council) ,  Rienzi  pro- 
tests against  the  rapacity  of,  411. 

Canossa,  Pope  Gregory  sheltered  in 
the  castle  of,  264. 

Carinthia,  Duke  of,  260. 

Castracani,  390. 

Celestine,  Pope,  316. 

Celibacy,  Jerome  and  the  contro- 
versy regarding,  59-62;  of  the 
clergy,  see  Marriage  of  priests. 

Cencius,  the  Roman  bandit,  243, 244 ; 
abducts  Pope  Gregory,  245. 

Cerealis,  19. 

Charities  of  the  Roman  ladies,  55, 
56. 

Charles  IV.  and  Rienzi,  476. 

Christianity,  its  conjunction  with 
Paganism  in  Roman  society,  7-10 ; 
nominally  embraced  by  the  com- 
mon people,  57;  again  conjoined 
with  Paganism  during  the  Renais- 
sance, 529. 


Church,  the,  corruption  of,  10,  11; 
Jerome  on  the  daily  life  of  a  Ro- 
man priest,  11,  12;  fierceness  of 
controversy  in,  105;  her  position 
during  the  barbarian  concmests  of 
Rome,  120,  121 ;  beginning  of  her 
sovereignty,  121,  122;  best  of  the 
Roman  youth  absorbed  by,  123; 
made  no  claim  to  universal  au- 
thority in  the  6th  century,  121, 
132,  168 ;  wealth  of,  used  for  pub- 
lic purposes,  147 ;  almsgiving  a  prin- 
ciple of,  151;  Gregory's  achieve- 
ments for,  170;  pretensions  to 
supremacy  made  by  John  of  Con- 
stantinople, 170,  173;  Gregory's 
tolerant  supervision  of,  174 ;  state 
of,  in  Germany,  188 ;  reforms  ur- 
gently necessary  in,  195  ;  effort  of 
Leo  IX.  for  reform  in,  196-199;  a 
new  law  for  the  election  of  the 
Popes,  208 ;  Hildebrand's  ambition 
of  making  her  a  great  arbitrating 
power,  211,  212;  how  she  secured 
independence  in  the  election  of  the 
Popes,  214,  215 ;  first  conflict  be- 
tween the  Empire  and,  215-219; 
decrees  of  the  Lateran  Council 
against  simony  and  marriage  of 
priests,  235-239;  decree  against 
lay  investiture,  239 ;  real  opening 
of  her  struggle  with  the  Empire, 
259;  her  position  in  Gregory's 
time,  and  that  of  the  Scottish 
Church  before  the  Disruption,  com- 
pared, 302;  her  conflict  with  the 
Empire  inevitable,  304,  305 ;  period 
of  her  greatest  power,  308;  her 
relations  with  the  Empire  in  the 
time  of  Innocent  III.,  311,  312. 
See  Gregory  the  Great,  Hildebrand 
and  Innocent  III. 

Cities,  Italian,  hostility  between,  311. 

Clement  III.,  appointed  by  the  Em- 
peror, 290 ;  calls  a  council  in  Rome, 
294 ;  his  coronation,  297.  See  Gui- 
bert  of  Ravenna. 

Clement  VI.,  Rienzi's  mission  to, 
404,  405 ;  confirms  Rienzi's  author- 
ity, 434. 


INDEX. 


607 


Cluny,  the  monastery  of,  186,  190. 

Colonna  family,  patronise  Petrarch, 
397-400;  Petrarch's  estimate  of 
398,  467 ;  character  of,  423 ;  rebels 
against  Rienzi,  453 :  their  expedi- 
tion against  Rome,  453-457,  469. 

Colonna,  Agapito,  425,  448. 

Colonna,  Giordano,  430. 

Colonna,  Giovanni,  397,  466;  his 
dealings  with  Rienzi,  405, 409, 411 

Colonna,  Giacomo,  his  friendship 
with  Petrarch,  397. 

Colonna,  Janni,  419,  421,  422,  430, 
448,  455,  456. 

Colonna,  Sciarra,  384,  393 ;  drives  out 
.the  Papal  troops  from  Rome,  384- 
389;  crowns  Louis  of  Bavaria,  391. 

Colonna,  Stefano  della,  393,  397, 425, 
448,  449 ;  Petrarch's  description  of, 
428;  forced  to  leave  Rome,  429; 
swears  loyalty  to  the  Buono  Stato, 
430 ;  Petrarch's  account  of  his  talk 
with,  4G7,  468. 

Colonna,  Stefanello,  430,  448;  and 
his  son,  494,  495. 

Colosseum,  as  the  stone-quarry  of 
the  ages,  577. 

Como,  Bishop  of,  219,  233. 

Constantinople,  downfall  of,  549. 

Corsignano,  buildings  erected  in, 
by  Pius  II.,  556. 

Council  of  Constantinople,  28,  47. 

Council  of  Rome,  Jerome  and,  27, 
28,  43,  47. 

Creighton,  Bishop,  quoted,  556,  578; 
on  Raphael's  artistic  aims,  598. 

Crown,  the  imperial,  249,  289,  298. 

Crusade,  Gregory  VII. 's  dream  of  a, 
265,  351,  352 ;  encouraged  by  suc- 
cessive Popes,  352 ;  an  expedition 
organised,  ib. ;  how  it  was  di- 
verted from  its  purpose,  353-356 ; 
against  the  Albigenses,  298-301; 
Innocent  rouses  the  Italian  towns 
to  aid  in,  373;  against  the  Turks, 
553,  557,  558. 

Crusaders,  Innocent's  instructions  to 
his,  353 ;  their  bargain  with  Venice 
ib.-  capture  Constantinople, ^6.,  354. 

Curzon,  Robert,  310. 


DAMASUS,  Bishop,  27, 48,  70 ;  Jerome 

becomes  a  counsellor  of,  54. 
Damian,  Peter,  200,  218,  219,  223. 
Dante,  211,  263. 
Desiderius,  301. 
Dinner-parties,  Roman,  6. 
Dominic,  358. 

EBERHARD,  Count,  255. 

Election  of  the  Popes,  interference 
of  Tuscany  in,  203,  204,  208;  the 
rival  authorities  in,  206-208 ;  Hil- 
debrand's  new  law  for,  207 ;  first 
election  under  the  new  law,  214, 
215 ;  Rome  secures  complete  free- 
dom in,  215. 

Emperors,  the  rival,  Henry  IV.  and 
Rudolf,  Gregory's  letters  regard- 
ing their  claims,  275,  276 ;  treated 
by  the  Pope  with  severe  imparti- 
ality, 278 ;  attitude  of  the  Roman 
populace  towards  their  envoys, 
ib. ;  Gregory  insists  upon  holding 
a  council  to  choose  between,  281; 
this  plan  abandoned,  ib.,  282; 
Rudolf's  case  stated  before  the 
Lateran  Council,  282 ;  Gregory  pro- 
nounces his  decision,  283-285.  See 
Henry  IV.  and  Rudolf. 

Emperors,  the  rival,  Philip  and 
Otho,  nothing  to  choose  between 
them,  331,  332;  Innocent's  atti- 
tude towards,  332,  333;  end  of 
their  ten  years'  struggle,  335.  See 
Philip  and  Otho. 

Empire  and  Church,  first  conflict  be- 
tween, 214-218;  real  opening  of  the 
struggle,  259;  inevitableness  of 
the  struggle,  304, 305 ;  in  the  time  of 
Innocent  III.,  311,  312.  See  Henry 
IV.,  Emperor,  and  Gregory  VII. 

England,  the  Pope's  interdict  upon, 
disregarded,  345. 

Epiphanius,  Bishop,  52,  79. 

Eugenius  IV.,  514,  516;  his  aspect 
and  character,  523-525;  Council 
of  Ferrara  called  by,  531. 

Eulogius,  Gregory's  letter  to,  173. 

Europe,  state  of,  in  the  time  of  In- 
nocent III.,  310-312. 


608 


INDEX. 


Eustochium,  23,  55,  78,  83,  87 ;  plot 

against,  24. 
Eutychius,  155. 
Excommunication  often  ineffectual, 

289,  290,  334. 
Ezekiel,  Gregory's    exposition    of, 

144,  177, 178. 

FABIOLA,  22,  37,  55 ;  her  matrimo- 
nial troubles,  93 ;  her  visit  to  the 
convent  at  Bethlehem,  ib.,  94; 
does  public  penance  in  Rome,  95- 
99 ;  founds  the  first  public  hospital 
in  Rome,  99. 

Fabriano,  Gentile  da,  523. 

Ferdinand  of  Naples,  his  advice  re- 
garding the  streets  and  balconies 
of  Rome,  570,  571. 

Ferrara,  Council  of,  531. 

France,  interdict  pronounced  upon, 
341,  343;  alarmed  by  the  revival 
of  Rome,  436. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  326. 

Fraticelli,  Rienzi  takes  refuge 
among,  474,  475. 

Frederic  II.,  Emperor,  Innocent  acts 
as  guardian  of,  326,  327. 

Frederick,  Abbot,  elected  Pope,  201. 

Funeral  feast,  a  Roman,  102-104. 

GEBEH^RD,  Bishop,  chosen  as  Pope 
Victor  II.,  200. 

Genseric,  120. 

German  prelates,  almost  indepen- 
dent of  the  Pope,  334. 

Germany,  state  of  the  Church  in, 
188;  an  anti-Pope  chosen  by  the 
Church  in,  216. 

Ghirlandajo,  575. 

Gibbon  quoted,  132. 

Goethe  quoted  on  Raphael's  loggie, 
599. 

Gordianus,  125. 

Gottfried  the  Hunchback,  244,  260. 

Gottfried  of  Lorraine,  204. 

Gratiano.    See  Gregory  VI. 

Greek  Church,  354. 

Gregorio,  Count,  203. 

Gregory  the  Great,  his  home  and 
early  life,  124,  125;  enters  public 


life,  125 ;  first  result  of  his  relig- 
ious impulse,  126 ;  becomes  a  monk, 
127;  describes  his  doubts  and  his 
intentions,  ib. ;  legends  regarding 
his  monastic  life,  128 ;  his  musings 
in  his  garden,  129,  130;  had  no 
ecclesiastical  ambitions,  131;  re- 
ceives the  first  orders  of  the 
Church,  ib. ;  appointed  a  cardinal 
deacon,  ib. ;  Gibbon's  description 
of  him  as  a  nuncio,  ib.  ;  his  posi- 
tion in  the  Court  at  Constantinople, 
132;  in  the  society  of  his  monks, 
132-138 ;  his  commentary  on  Job, 
134,  135 ;  its  moral  discursiveness, 
136,  137 ;  how  he  was  assisted  in  it 
by  the  monks,  137  ;  his  liberality, 
139, 147 ;  promotion,  and  popularity 
as  a  preacher,  139 ;  his  encounter 
with  the  English  slave-children, 
ib.,  140 ;  sets  out  on  his  mission  to 
Britain,  141 ;  compelled  to  return, 
142 ;  effect  upon  him  of  the  story 
of  Trajan  and  the  widow,  ib.,  143 ; 
organises  processions  of  penitents 
during  the  plague,  144,  145;  his 
vision  of  the  angel,  146, 147 ;  elect- 
ed Bishop  of  Rome,  148;  attempts 
to  escape  from  this  responsibility, 
ib. ;  his  repugnance  to  the  cares  of 
office,  149;  his  conviction  that  the 
end  of  the  world  was  near,  ib.,  150 ; 
feeds  jthe  starving  poor  of  Rome, 
151 ;  preserves  Rome  from  attacks 
by  the  barbarians,  152;  was  not 
a  learned  man,  ib.,  153;  his  in- 
structions to  missionaries  for  the 
making  of- con  verts,  156,  157;  and 
for  pastoral  work,  ib. ;  his  inter- 
cessions and  negotiations  for  the 
safety  of  Rome,  158,  159 ;  amount 
of  his  work  and  responsibility,  159, 
160 ;  welcomes  the  usurping  Em- 
peror Phocas,  160;  sends  forth 
Augustine  on  his  mission  to  Eng- 
land, 161-163;  no  reason  for  attri- 
buting to  him  a  great  scheme  of 
papal  supremacy,  163, 164, 175, 176; 
his  reformation  in  music,  165,  166; 
introduces  changes  in  the  ritual. 


INDEX. 


609 


166;  his  daily  surroundings  and 
occupations,  167,  168 ;  his  rules  of 
religious  discipline,  168 ;  not  a  fault- 
less character,  169;  his  achieve- 
ments for  Rome  and  for  the  Church, 
ib. ;  his  indignation  at  the  assump- 
tion of  supremacy  by  John  of  Con- 
stantinople, 170 ;  his  letters  on  this 
subject  to  the  Emperor  and  to  the 
Eastern  Bishop,  ib.,  173 ;  his  letter 
to  Eulogius,  173;  tolerant  in  the 
supervision  of  his  bishops,  175; 
had  no  desire  for  political  indepen- 
dence, ib. ;  accused  of  causing  the 
destruction  of  ancient  buildings, 
176,  177 ;  his  last  illness,  177 ;  his 
commentaries  on  Ezekiel  and  Job, 
ib. ;  his  death,  ib.',  spots  connected 
with  his  memory,  179. 

Gregory  VI.,  186, 188;  how  he  secured 
his  election,  183 ;  deposition  of,  ib., 
189. 

Gregory,  VII.,  (see  Hildbrand),  his 
dream  of  elevating  the  Church,  231 ; 
hopelessness  of  his  instruments, 
ib.;  his  reforms,  and  the  enemies 
they  raised  up  against  him,  ib., 
232;  sufferings  of  his  later  years, 
232;  council  for  the  discussion  of 
questions  between  Henry  IV.  and, 
233 ;  reconciliation  between  Henry 
and,  235 ;  his  letter  summoning  the 
first  Lateran  Council,  ib.;  his  de- 
cree against  lay  investiture,  239, 
240;  unbosoms  himself  in  a  letter 
to  Hugo,  240 ;  his  care  for  the  cause 
of  justice  and  public  honesty,  240- 
242 ;  abduction  of,  by  Cencius,  245 ; 
rescued  by  the  populace,  249,  250 ; 
summons  Henry  to  appear  before 
the  papal  court,  251;  his  letter 
of  remonstrance  to  the  Emperor, 
252;  council  convoked  by  Henry 
for  the  overthrow  of,  253,  254; 
acts  and  addresses  against,  issued 
by  this  council,  254,'  255 ;  his  re- 
ception of  the  Emperor's  letters, 
257-259 ;  excommunicates  the  Em- 
peror, 259 ;  effect  of  this  step,  259- 
261;  agrees  to  preside  over  the 
2  R 


Council  of  Augsburg,  261 ;  sets 
out  for  Augsburg,  ib. ;  takes  refuge 
in  the  Castle  of  Canossa,  264-266 ; 
German  bishops  make  their  sub- 
mission to,  266;  accepts  Henry's 
promises  of  amendment,  270;  re- 
ceives him  again  into  the  church, 
ib.,  271;  his  attitude  towards 
Henry,  273 ;  his  letter  to  the  Ger- 
man princes,  274;  shut  up  in  Ca- 
nossa Castle,  ib. ;  anxious  to  take 
part  in  the  settlement  of  the  Em- 
pire, 275 ;  his  letters  on  the  rivalry 
of  the  two  kings,  ib.,  276;  sends 
legates  to  both  kings  demanding 
a  safe-conduct,  276 ;  his  authority 
disregarded  by  the  rival  parties, 
ib.,  277;  treats  both  impartially, 
278 ;  and  the  heresy  of  Berengarius, 
279;  and  the  Norwegian  king's 
request  for  missionaries,  ib.,  280; 
insists  upon  a  council  to  choose 
between  the  rival  kings,  281 ;  his 
reception  of  the  statement  of  Ru- 
dolf 's  envoys,  283 ;  appeals  to  St. 
Peter  to  judge  of  his  dealings  with 
Henry,  284,  285 ;  asserts  his  claim 
to  universal  authority,  286 ;  sends 
the  imperial  crown  to  Kudolf ,  289 ; 
Henry's  council  for  the  deposition 
of,  ib. ;  his  reconciliation  with 
Guiscard,  291,  292;  council  con- 
voked by  the  anti-Pope  to  reverse 
his  anathemas,  293;  Henry  sub- 
mits his  cause  to  a  council  con- 
voked by,  295;  refuses  to  make 
peace  with  Henry,  296;  confined 
to  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  297 ; 
his  faith  in  his  mission,  298 ;  brings 
down  the  Normans  upon  Rome, 
299 ;  his  spirit  broken  by  the  sack 
of  Rome,  300;  his  journey  to  Sa- 
lerno, ib.,  301;  revival  of  his  for- 
mer energy,  302;  the  abuses  he 
opposed,  and  those  in  the  Church 
of  Scotland  before  the  Disruption, 
compared,  ib.,  303;  a  martyr  to 
his  hatred  of  simony,  303,  304 ;  his 
death,  305;  his  life  and  achieve- 
ments, 306,  308,  363,  514. 


610 


INDEX. 


Guelf  and  Ghibelline,  when  these 
titles  were  first  used,  326. 

Guglielmo,  Fra,  447. 

Guibert  of  Ravenna,  232,  244,  292; 
elected  Pope  by  the  Emperor's 
supporters,  290.  See  Clement  III. 

Guiscard,  Robert,  232, 244 ;  Gregory's 
reconciliation  with,  291 ;  leaves  the 
Pope  to  his  fate,  293 ;  rescues  the 
Pope  and  sacks  Rome,  299;  con- 
ducts Gregory  to  Salerno,  300, 301. 

HELENA,  Empress,  40. 

Heliodorus,  Jerome's  epistle  to,  46. 

Helvidius,  60. 

Henry  III.,  Emperor,  183 ;  patronises 
Hildebrand,  187;  appoints  three 
successive  Popes,  189. 

Henry  IV.,  Emperor,  his  vicious 
character,  223,  224 ;  summoned 
before  the  Papal  court,  224  ;  coun- 
cil for  the  discussion  of  questions 
between  Gregory  and,  233;  recon- 
ciliation between  Gregory  and, 
235 ;  rebels  against  the  decrees  of 
the  Lateran  Council,  251 ;  Greg- 
ory's letter  of  remonstrance  to, 
252;  summons  a  council  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  Pope,  253,  254; 
acts  and  addresses  issued  by  the 
council,  254,  255 ;  excommunica- 
tion of,  259;  abandoned  by  his 
friends  and  supporters,  260,  261; 
his  princes  threaten  to  elect  a  king 
in  his  place,  261;  determines  to 
make  his  submission  to  Gregory, 
ib. ;  his  fortunes  begin  to  revive, 
266 ;  his  arrival  at  the  Castle  of 
Canossa,  ib.,  269;  his  penances, 
270;  his  bond  of  repentance  ac- 
cepted by  Gregory,  ib. ;  received 
again  into  the  Church,  ib.,  271; 
his  attitude  towards  Gregory,  272  ; 
refuses  his  consent  to  the  council 
of  arbitration,  281;  Gregory  ap- 
peals to  St.  Peter  to  judge  of  his 
dealings  with,  282-285  ;  again  ex- 
communicated and  dethroned,  285 ; 
his  council  for  the  deposition  of 
Gregory,  289,  290 ;  chooses  an  anti- 


Pope,  290;  success  of  his  enter- 
prises, ib. ;  crowned  Emperor  by 
his  anti-Pope,  292 ;  seizes  the  Leo- 
nine city,  293;  submits  his  cause 
to  a  council  convoked  by  Gregory, 
295;  this  council  proves  fruitless, 
296 ;  becomes  master  of  Rome,  ib., 
297;  evacuates  the  city,  299-300. 
See  Emperors,  the  rival. 

Henry  VI.,  Emperor,  327,  328. 

Henry  VII. ,  402. 

Heresy,  the,  of  the  Albigenses,  355, 
356 ;  Innocent's  letter  on,  356 ;  or- 
dinances against,  370. 

Hermits,  Egyptian  desert  peopled 
by,  34  ;  Melania  supports  and  pro- 
tects fugitive,  35  ;  self-chastise- 
ments of,  43,  44.  See  Monks. 

Hildebrand,  his  wanderings  about 
the  world,  184 ;  surroundings  of  his 
early  life,  ib.,  185 ;  at  the  monas- 
tery of  Cluny,  186 ;  patronised  by 
the  Emperor,  Henry  III.,  ib.,  187; 
influence  of  his  experience  of  the 
Church  in  Germany  upon,  188; 
beginning  of  his  public  life,  ib.; 
follows  the  deposed  Gregory  VI. 
into  exile,  189  ;  in  Germany  again, 
190 ;  becomes  a  counsellor  of  Bruno, 
191 ;  his  plan  for  Bruno's  conduct 
successful,  193;  offices  conferred 
upon,  by  Leo  IX.,  ib. ;  sets  in  or- 
der the  monastery  of  St.  Paul, 
195 ;  his  work  in  Rome  under  Leo, 
200;  selects  a  German  prelate  as 
Pope,  ib. ;  becomes  adviser  to  the 
Empress  Agnes,  202;  solicits  the 
intervention  of  Tuscany  in  the 
election  of  the  Popes,  204,  207; 
the  actual  possessor  of  the  power 
of  two  weak  Popes,  205,  206 ;  holds 
a  council  in  Rome,  206;  his  new 
law  for  the  election  of  the  Popes, 

207,  208;    his  aims  and  purposes, 

208,  211 ;  his  dream  of  the  Church 
as  disinterested  arbitrator  in  all 
quarrels,  211,  212  ;   did  he  desire 
universal  authority?  212;  begins 
his  reign  under  Nicolas  II.,  ib. ; 
his  letter  to  a  powerful  archbishop, 


INDEX. 


611 


213;  secures  for  Rome  complete 
independence  in  the  choice  of 
Popes,  215 ;  his  sanction  of  the  in- 
vasion of  England  by  the  Nor- 
mans, 221 ;  supports  the  Conquer- 
or's spoliation  of  Saxon  abbeys, 
ib.  ;  summons  Henry  IV.  to  appear 
before  the  papal  court,  224;  de- 
velopment of  his  ideal  of  the 
Church's  sovereignty,  ib.,  225; 
chosen  and  elected  Pope,  225-227 ; 
his  abstemious  habits,  297.  See 
Gregory  VII. 

Historian  of  Rienzi,  382,  383. 

Hospital  founded  by  Fabiola,  99. 

Hospital  Santo  Spirito  rebuilt  by  In- 
nocent, 376 ;  and  again  by  Sixtus 
IV.,  572,  573. 

Hugo  of  Cluny,  234,  265,  269 ;  Greg- 
ory's letter  to,  240. 

Humanists,  school  of,  560,  561. 

INGELBURGA,  340,  343. 

Innocent  III.,  his  wide-spread  activ- 
ity, 308;  his  family,  ib.,  309;  his 
education,  309;  becomes  a  canon 
of  St.  Peter's,  310 ;  appointed  Car- 
dinal, 313;  his  book  on  the  vanity 
of  life,  313-315 ;  elected  Pope,  316 ; 
his  address  to  the  assembly  after 
his  consecration,  319-322 ;  endeav- 
ours to  strengthen  his  hold  upon 
Rome,  322-324;  changes  the  con- 
stitution of  the  city,  323 ;  regains 
possession  of  the  Papal  States, 
325,  326 ;  acts  as  guardian  to  Fred- 
eric of  Sicily,  326 ;  profits  by  the 
inactivity  of  the  Empire,  ib  ; 
sides  against  Philip,  332,  333 ;  sup- 
ports Otho,  333 ;  unable  to  enforce 
his  authority  over  the  German 
prelates,  334 ;  excommunicates 
Philip,  ib.;  his  part  in  the  ten 
years'  struggle  between  Philip  and 
Otho,  335;  crowns  Otho  as  Em- 
peror, 338 ;  Otho  breaks  faith  with, 
339,  340 ;  his  dealings  with  Philip 
Augustus,  340-343  ;  pronounces  in- 
terdict upon  France,  341,  342 ;  his 
activity,  314 ;  pronounces  interdict 


upon  England,  345;  excommuni- 
cates King  John,  ib. ;  his  accept- 
ance of  John's  oath,  349;  his  deal- 
ings with  John  unworthy  of  his 
character,  ib.,  350;  his  instruc- 
tions to  the  Crusaders,  353;  pro- 
tests against  the  use  made  of  the 
expedition,  354;  his  letter  on 
heresy,  356 ;  on  the  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  by  sectarians,  ib. ;  his 
attitude  towards  the  Albigenses, 
357,  358;  sends  missionaries  to 
them,  358;  proclaims  a  crusade 
against  them,  359;  his  career  a 
failure,  361-363;  strengthened  Pa- 
pal authority  over  the  Church, 
364;  his  address  to  the  fourth 
Lateran  Council,  365-369 ;  and  the 
appeal  of  the  Provencal  nobles, 
371 ;  befriends  Raymond  of  Tou- 
louse, 372;  rouses  the  Italian 
towns  to  aid  in  a  crusade,  373 ;  his 
death,  374 ;  small  result  of  his  ac- 
tivities, ib. ;  Roman  populace  at 
enmity  with,  375 ;  his  gifts  to  his 
brother  Richard,  ib. ;  buildings 
erected  by,  37(5 ;  his  character,  ib. ; 
the  greatness  of  his  ideals,  514. 

Innocent  VI.,  484. 

Innocent  VIII.,  581,  582. 

JEROME,  28,  37, 42, 43, 66, 77 ;  quoted, 
7,  19,  57,  58,  63,  69,  70, 110,  114 ;  on 
the  daily  life  of  a  Roman  priest, 
11, 12 ;  accused  of  being  concerned 
in  Melania's  disappearance,  33; 
his  life  in  the  desert,  44,  45;  his 
Epistle  to  Heliodorus,  45,  46 ;  en- 
ters into  religious  controversy,  46, 
47;  his  usefulness  recognised  by 
the  Church  in  Rome,  48;  lodged 
in  Marcella's  palace,  49;  his 
friendship  with  Paula,  ib.,  69;  his 
life  among  the  Roman  ladies,  50- 
54 ;  his  position  in  Roman  society, 
54;  begins  his  translation  of 
Scripture,  ib. ;  popular  resentment 
against,  59,  62,  63,  69,  70 ;  engages 
in  the  controversy  regarding  celi- 
bacy, 60;  his  letter  on  virginity 


612 


INDEX. 


quoted,  ib.,  61 ;  his  letter  to  Paula 
on  her  daughter's  death,  68,  69; 
forced  to  retire  from  Rome,  72; 
his  letters  to  Asella,  72-76 ;  joins 
Paula's  caravanserai,  79;  founds 
a  convent  at  Bethlehem,  82 ;  how 
his  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
was  finished,  84-88 ;  entreats  Mar- 
cella  to  abandon  the  world,  91; 
puzzled  by  Fabiola's  curiosity,  95 ; 
his  judgment  in  the  case  of  a 
divorced  woman,  96;  his  contro- 
versy with  Rufinus,  100,  101. 

Jeronimo,  Count,  580. 

Jerusalem,  40,  41. 

Jews,  370. 

Job,  Gregory  undertakes  a  commen- 
tary on,  at  the  request  of  his 
monks,  134-138. 

John  XXII.,  384;  deposed  by  the 
Emperor  Louis,  392 ;  his  support- 
ers regain  possession  of  Rome,  393. 

John  of  Constantinople,  his  preten- 
sions to  supremacy  over  the 
Church,  170,  174 ;  Gregory's  letter 
to,  173. 

John,  King  of  England,  and  the 
Pope's  interdict,  344,  345 ;  excom- 
municated and  deposed,  345 ; 
swears  fealty  as  a  vassal  of  the 
Pope,  ib.,  346. 

Jovinian,  60. 

Jubilee,  papal,  429,  480,  483,  536. 

Julian,  Emperor,  8. 

Julius  II.,  a  fighting  Pope,  582;  a 
patron  of  artists,  583,  589;  pulls 
down  the  ancient  St.  Peter's,  ib., 
587,  591 ;  secures  the  States  of  the 
Church,  587;  employs  Raphael, 
589,  590 ;  his  portrait  by  Raphael, 
590;  his  death  and  career,  590-592. 

LADIES.    See  Women. 

Lanciani,  Professor,  242,  539,  540. 

Langton,  Stephen,  287. 

Lateran  Council,  the  first,  Gregory's 
letter  convoking,  235 ;  its  decrees 
against  simony  and  marriage  of 
priests,  236-238;  lay  investiture 
prohibited  by  the  second  Council, 


239;  reception  of  the  Emperor's 
letters  by  Gregory  in,  256-259 ;  de- 
mands the  excommunication  of 
Henry,  259;  decides  the  case  of 
the  rival  emperors,  281-285;  the 
fourth,  Pope  Innocent's  address 
to,  365-369 ;  ordinances  passed  by, 
370,  371;  gives  judgment  for  de 
Montfort  against  the  Proven9al 
nobles,  371,  372. 

Lay  investiture,  decree  against,  239. 

Leander,  133;  Gregory's  letter  to, 
127, 149. 

Learning,  how  pursued  during  the 
Renaissance,  529 ;  Nicolas  V.  as  a 
patron  of,  537. 

Legacies  to  priests  declared  illegal,12. 

Leo  IV.,  the  Leonine  city  enclosed 
by,  541-543. 

Leo  IX.,  confers  offices  upon  Hilde- 
brand,  193;  his  tour  of  reforma- 
tion, 195-199;  at  the  Council  of 
Rheims,  198 ;  his  use  of  the  power 
of  excommunication,  199 ;  his  last 
enterprise  and  his  death,  ib.,  200. 
See  Bruno,  Bishop. 

Leo  X.,  515,  516;  little  troubled  by 
the  rebellion  against  the  Papacy, 
592,  595;  his  attitude  towards 
Luther,  596,  597 ;  obliged  to  fight 
for  the  Patrimony,  ib. ;  amuses 
himself  with  his  painters  and  his 
court,  ib.,  598;  his  patronage  of 
Raphael  the  chief  element  in  his 
fame,  598;  his  career,  599. 

Leo  XIII.,  as  Papa  Angelico,  212  n. 

Leonine  city.    See  Borgo. 

Leopold  of  Mainz,  334. 

Lombard  League,  325. 

Lorenzo,  Cola's  son,  his  baptism  of 
blood,  461. 

Louis  of  Bavaria,  384 ;  his  reception 
in  Rome,  320,  321 ;  his  coronation, 
390,  391 ;  declares  Pope  John  de- 
posed, 392 ;  elects  a  new  Pope,  ib. ; 
recrowned  by  his  anti-Pope,  ib.,  393 ; 
his  departure  from  Rome,  393. 

Luther,  Martin,  595 ;  Pope  Leo's  atti- 
tude towards,  596. 

Lytton,  Lord,  his  novel  Rienzi,  420. 


INDEX. 


613 


MADDALENA,  Kienzi's  mother,  402. 

Manno,  Giovanni,  386. 

Mantegna,  Andrea,  582. 

Marcella,  early  life  and  marriage  of, 
17,  18;  becomes  a  widow,  18;  her 
reputation  for  eccentricity,  ib.,  19; 
forms  her  community  of  Christian 
women,  20 ;  her  zeal  for  knowl- 
edge, 26 ;  entreated  by  Paula  and 
Jerome  to  abandon  the  world, 
89-91 ;  prefers  her  useful  life  in 
Home,  92, 93 ;  saves  Principia  from 
the  Goths,  110 ;  tortured  by  them, 
ib.,  her  death,  113.  See  Marcella, 
the  Society  of. 

Marcella,  the  Society  of,  founded, 
20;  character  and  position  of  the 
members,  21 ;  some  associates  of, 
22-24 ;  a  religious  and  intellectual 
meeting-place,  25;  daily  life  of  the 
members,  26;  Thierry  quoted  on 
their  occupations,  ib. ;  Jerome  be- 
comes the  guest  of,  49,  54 ;  wealth 
and  liberality  of,  55,  56;  unre- 
stricted life  of,  57 ;  shares  in  the 
popular  resentment  against  Je- 
rome, 77 ;  last  days  of,  108-110. 

Marcellinus,  Ammianus,  quoted,  5, 
6,  11. 

Marriage  of  priests,  decree  of  the 
first  Lateran  Council  against,  235, 
238;  priests  rebel  against  this 
measure,  237;  effects  of  the  de- 
cree on  the  minds  of  the  laity, 
238,  239. 

Martin  V.,  516,  517,  525;  begins  the 
reconstruction  and  adornment  of 
Rome,  523;  administers  justice  ib. 

Martino,  F.  di,  544. 

Matilda  of  Tuscany,  204,  217,  233, 
256,  262,  269,  270,  292,  325;  her 
character,  etc.,  263. 

Maurice,  Emperor,  148, 152, 160 

Maximianus,  139. 

Medici,  Cosimo  dei,  534. 

Melania,  her  bereavement,  30; 
abandons  her  son,  ib.,  31;  sensa- 
tion caused  in  Rome  by  her  disap- 
pearance, 32 ;  in  the  Egyptian 
deserts,  33 ;  provides  for  and  pro- 


tects hunted  monks,  35;  her  en- 
counter with  the  proconsul  in  Pal- 
estine, ib. ;  accompanied  by  Rufi- 
nus,  36,  39 ;  founds  a  monastery  at 
Jerusalem,  41;  the  nature  of  her 
self-sacrifice,  ib. ;  her  quarrel  with 
Paula,  81. 

Mercenaries.  See  Soldiers  of  For- 
tune. 

Milman,  Dean,  363. 

Mincio,  Bishop,  how  he  was  elected 
Pope,  203;  his  abdication,  204. 

Missionaries,  Gregory's  instructions 
to,  for  the  making  of  converts,  156 ; 
and  for  pastoral  work,  ib.,  157. 

Monks,  wandering,  36,  37,  184 ;  re- 
sentment of  the  Roman  populace 
against,  63;  Gregory's  following 
of,  132-138. 

Monozello,  Fra.  and  Pope  Benedict, 
395. 

Montefiascone,  the  wine  of,  485  n. 

Montfort,  Simon  de,  360,  361, 371, 372. 

Monuments,  ancient,  restored  by 
Paul  II.,  562. 

Moreale,  Fra,  487;  agrees  to  assist 
in  Rienzi's  undertaking,  489,  490 ; 
arrives  in  Rome,  496;  his  arrest 
and  execution,  497-500. 

Muntz,  M.,  quoted,  562. 

Music,  Gregory's  reformation  in, 
165,  166;  a  commentary  on  his 
system,  as  adopted  by  the  Ger- 
mans and  Gauls,  166. 

NICOLAS  II.,  205,  213. 

Nicolas  V.,  392,  516,  562,  567;  as  a 
lover  of  literature,  530;  uncon- 
scious of  the  coming  revolution, 
ib. ;  his  origin,  531 ;  his  learning, 
ib. ;  makes  his  reputation,  532;  as 
a  book  collector,  534 ;  his  charac- 
ter, 535 ;  a  lover  of  peace,  ib. ;  his 
dealings  with  his  literary  men, 
537  ;  churches  rebuilt  by,  544 ;  his 
additions  to  the  Vatican  and  to  St. 
Peter's,  545 ;  founds  the  Vatican 
library,  546;  his  work  as  a 
builder-Pope,  549;  his  death-bed 
counsel  to  his  cardinals,  550,  551. 


614 


INDEX. 


Nobles,  Roman,  strongholds  of,  in 
Eome,  382;  use  made  of,  by 
Rienzi,  447,  448;  arrested  at 
Kienzi's  banquet,  and  afterwards 
discharged,  449;  effect  of  this 
treatment  upon,  450;  rebellion  of 
the  Orsini,  451 ;  and  of  the  Colon- 
nas,  453-456;  their  return  to  the 
city,  472,  473.  See  Aristocracy. 

Normans  of  Southern  Italy,  199,  200, 
213,  225 ;  Rome  sacked  by,  299. 

Nuncio,  Gregory  as  a,  132,  138. 

OCEANUS,  37,  101. 

Odilon  of  Cluny,  186. 

Olaf ,  King  of  Norway,  280. 

Origen,  100. 

Orsini  family,  424,  436,  448,  454, 467 ; 
rebel  against  Rienzi,  451. 

Orsini,  Bartoldo,  393. 

Orsini,  Ranello,  430. 

Orsini,  Robert,  425. 

Otho,  Philip's  rival  in  the  Empire, 
331;  supported  by  the  Pope,  333; 
becomes  Emperor,  336 ;  his  corona- 
tion in  Rome,  336-338 ;  breaks  faith 
with  the  Pope,  339,  340.  See  Em- 
perors, the  rival. 

PAGANISM,  its  conjunction  with  the 
Christian  religion  in  Roman  so- 
ciety, 8,  9 ;  this  conjunction  occurs 
again  at  the  Renaissance,  530. 

Palazzo  Venezia,  559. 

Pammachius,  55,  77,  99,  101,  114. 

Papencordt  quoted,  450. 

Pastoral  work,  Gregory's  instruc- 
tions regarding,  156-158. 

Paul  II.  builds  the  Palazzo  Venezia, 
559;  Platina's  strictures  upon,  ib., 
560;  dismisses  the  learned  men 
patronised  by  Pius,  560,  561 ;  im- 
prisons Platina,  561 ;  his  liberality, 
562;  restores  ancient  monuments, 
ib.;  his  magnificent  tastes,  ib., 
563;  Platina  on  his  private  life, 
563 ;  his  humours  and  vanities,  564 ; 
his  death,  568. 

Paula,  37,  63 ;  and  her  family,  22-25, 
26 ;  her  friendship  with  Jerome,  49, 


69 ;  her  character  and  position,  65, 
66;  how  she  was  attracted  to  the 
Marcellau  Society,  66;  Jerome's 
letter  to,  on  Blsesilla's  death,  68, 
69 ;  her  abandonment  of  her  home 
and  children,  77,  78;  her  journey 
to  Jerusalem,  79,  80;  her  quarrel 
with  Melania,  81 ;  travels  through 
Syria,  ib. ;  builds  convents  and  a 
hospice,  82,  83;  assists  Jerome  in 
the  translation  of  the  Scriptures, 
83-88;  entreats  Marcella  to  join 
her  in  Bethlehem,  90,  91. 

Paulina,  23,  55,  77 ;  her  death,  101 ; 
the  funeral  feast,  102-104. 

Paulinian,  101.' 

Paulinus,  Bishop,  quoted,  105. 

Peacemakers,  431. 

Pelagius  II.,  141,  147;  his  letter  on 
the  defenceless  state  of  Rome,  138. 

Pen,  silver,  used  by  Rienzi,  411. 

Pepino,  Count,  471. 

Perugino,  575,  590. 

Petrarch,  390,  411*437 ;  his  friendship 
with  the  Colonna  family,  397; 
crowned  Altissimo  Poeta,  398, 399 ; 
quoted,  433,  435,  450,  465,  466,  522; 
his  letters  to  Rienzi,  361,  369,  386; 
his  faith  in  Rienzi  shaken,  387; 
his  letter  describing  his  talk  with 
Stefano,  467, 468 ;  letter  on  Rienzi's 
career  and  downfall,  478,  479; 
describes  how  Rienzi's  condemna- 
tion was  reversed,  479,  480. 

Philip  Augustus  of  France  and  his 
wives,  340-343 ;  his  threatened  in- 
vasion of  England,  345. 

Philip  of  Swabia  elected  Emperor, 
330;  Innocent's  denunciation  of, 
333;  his  success,  335;  his  death, 
336. 

Phocas,  Emperor,  160, 169. 

Pintore,  Antonazzo,  576. 

Pius  II.,  562,  567;  his  early  career, 
553,  554;  his  character  554;  his 
writings,  555 ;  as  a  builder,  55!> ; 
his  enthusiasm  for  the  crusade 
against  the  Turk,  557,  558. 

Plague  in  Rome,  and  the  processions 
of  penitents,  144-146. 


INDEX. 


615 


Platina,  his  biased  account  of  Paul 
II.,  559,  560;  protests  against 
Paul's  dismissal  of  the  learned 
men,  560;  imprisoned,  561;  rein- 
stated, 577. 

Poor,  the  destitute,  Gregory  feeds 
and  cares  for,  151. 

Popes,  three  rival,  in  Rome,  183 ;  how 
their  conflict  was  ended,  ib. ;  three 
successive,  appointed  by  the  Em- 
peror Henry  III.,  189, 190 ;  become 
fighting  princes,  513,  514;  ideals 
of  the  greatest,  514;  art-patrons 
among,  515 ;  how  treated  by  Eng- 
lish writers,  ib.',  success  of  the 
builder-Popes,  516, 517 ;  their  power 
and  influence  in  the  times  of  Pius 
II.  and  Paul  II.,  564,  567.  See 
Gregory  the  Great,  Hildebrand, 
Innocent  III.,  Election  of  the  Popes, 
et  passim. 

Populace,  Roman,  degraded  state 
of,  in  the  4th  century,  4,  5 ;  all 
nominally  Christian,  57 ;  their  re- 
sentment against  the  monks,  63; 
compel  Gregory  to  abandon  his 
mission  to  Britain,  141,  142;  Greg- 
ory feeds  the  destitute  poor,  151 ; 
fight  between  Papal  troops  and, 
385-389;  their  reception  of  Louis 
of  Bavaria,  389-391;  reception  of 
Fra  Venturino  by,  394,  395;  un- 
ruliness  and  recklessness  of,  395; 
enthusiastic  over  the  crowning  of 
Petrarch,  399,  400;  Rienzi  as  an 
ambassador  of,  to  Clement  VI., 
404-409;  give  absolute  power  to 
Rienzi,  427  ;  begin  to  criticise 
Rienzi,  438;  their  conflict  with  the 
Colonna,  454-457;  resent  Rienzi's 
baptism  of  his  son,  461,  462 ;  had 
no  active  share  in  Rienzi's  down- 
fall, 472;  invite  him  to  reassume 
the  government  of  the  city,  489 ; 
their  reception  of  Rienzi,  494;  their 
rising  against  him,  502-508.  See 
Rome. 

Praetextata,  23,  24. 

Priests,  Roman,  Jerome  quoted  on, 
11, 12. 


Principia,  109,  110. 

Provence,  Innocent's  missionaries  in, 
358,  359;  appeal  of  the  forfeited 
lords  of,  against  de  Montfort,  371. 

RAPHAEL,  595,  597;  employed  by 
Julius  II.,  589,  590;  his  portrait  of 
Julius,  590;  Pope  Leo's  patronage 
of,  598;  Bishop  Creighton  on  his 
artistic  aims,  ib. ;  had  no  didactic 
purposes,  ib. 

Raymond,  Bishop,  the  Pope's  Vicar, 

416,  424,  427,  429 ;  protests  against 
Rienzi's  pretensions,  442;    recon- 
ciled to  Rienzi,  471. 

Raymond  of  Toulouse,  371,  372. 

"Religious  adventures,"  36,  37. 

Renaissance,  526,  529;  conjunction 
of  Christianity  and  Paganism  dur- 
ing, 530. 

Rheims,  Council  of,  the  Pope's  open- 
ing address,  197;  speeches  of  the 
bishops,  198. 

Riario,  Pietro,  578,  579. 

Riccardo  Imprennante,  500. 

Richard,  brother  of  Pope  Innocent, 
575. 

Rienzi,  Cola  di,  his  historian,  382, 
384;  his  parentage,  403,  404;  his 
love  for  the  ancient  writers,  403; 
his  early  life,  ib.,  404;  sent  on  a 
mission  to  Clement  VI.,  404;  ap- 
pointed notary  to  the  City  Council 
of  Rome,  405 ;  success  of  the  mis- 
sion, 406;  letter  announcing  his 
success,  ib.  ;  disgrace  and  re- 
turn to  favour,  410,  411;  protests 
against  the  rapacity  of  the  City 
Council,  412;  his  painted  allegories, 
413,  415,  419 ;  attitude  of  the  pa- 
tricians towards,  416,  419,  423 ;  his 
address  to  the  Roman  notables, 

417,  418 ;  his  power  and  privileges, 
418;  and  the  secret  society,  423, 
424;   the  conspiracy  carried  out, 
425 ;    addresses  the  people  on  the 
Capitol,  426 ;  absolute  power  given 
to,  by  the  people,  427;  drives  all 
the  nobles  out  of  Rome,  429;  com- 
pels the  nobles  to  swear  loyalty  to 


616 


INDEX. 


the  Buono  Stato,  ib.t  430;  his 
character,  431 ;  justice  and  public 
safety  in  Rome  secured  by,  431- 
434;  his  braggadocio,  432 ;  secures 
the  safety  of  travellers  on  the 
roads,  ib.,  433;  his  authority  con- 
firmed by  the  Pope,  434 ;  his  pro- 
cession to  St.  Peter's,  ib.,  435; 
his  love  of  magnificence,  435 ; 
Petrarch's  letters  to,  436 ;  success 
of  his  warlike  expeditions,  ib.,  437 ; 
beginning  of  his  indiscretions,  437, 
438 ;  makes  himself  a  knight,  438 ; 
claims  to  hold  his  authority  from 
God  and  from  the  people,  440 ; 
friendly  messages  from  European 
monarchs  to,  441;  ceremonials  of 
his  knighthood,  ib.,  442 ;  the  Pope's 
Vicar  protests  against  his  pre- 
tensions, 443;  claims  universal 
dominion  in  the  name  of  the  Roman 
people,  ib.,  444;  sincerity  of  his 
claim,  444,  445 ;  crowning  of,  445, 
446;  Fra  Guglielmo's  grief  for, 
447;  makes  use  of  the  nobles, 
ib.,  448;  gives  a  banquet  to  the 
nobles,  448 ;  arrests  and  discharges 
them,  449;  his  expedition  against 
the  Orsini,  451;  his  meeting  with 
the  Pope's  legate,  452;  a  power- 
ful party  organised  against,  453; 
apprehensive  of  danger,  ib. ; 
celebrates  his  victory  over  the 
Colonna,  457 ;  fails  to  take  advan- 
tage of  his  success,  460 ;  his  son's 
baptism  of  blood,  461 ;  his  friends 
begin  to  desert  him,  462;  Petrarch's 
letter  of  reproof  to,  465 ;  Petrarch's 
faith  in  him  shaken,  466 ;  moder- 
ates his  magnificence  and  his  arro- 
gance, 470 ;  sees  visions  of  disaster, 
471;  his  downfall,  471-473;  de- 
velops the  character  of  a  conspira- 
tor, 473, 474 ;  takes  refuge  among 
the  Fraticelli,  474,  475;  his  cor- 
respondence with  Charles  IV.,  476 ; 
handed  over  to  the  Pope,  ib. ;  con- 
demned to  death,  477  ;  how  he  was 
saved,  ib.,  479;  his  career  and 
downfall,  Petrarch's  letter  on, 


478 ;  returns  with  the  Pope's 
legate  to  Rome,  484,  485;  wel- 
comed in  the  towns  of  the  Patri- 
mony, 488 ;  his  enterprise  assisted 
by  Moreale  and  his  mercenaries, 
490;  obtains  the  countenance  of 
the  Pope's  legate,  ib.,  491 ;  his  ex- 
pedition sets  out,  491 ;  his  hopes 
and  aims,  492 ;  his  reception  by  the 
Roman  populace,  493,  494 ;  change 
in  his  outward  man,  494 ;  his  expe- 
dition against  Stefanello,  ib.,  495; 
his  motives  for  executing  Moreale, 
496 ;  imprisons  and  executes  Mo- 
reale, 497-500;  this  act  generally 
approved,  500;  but  questioned  by 
his  councillors,  ib. ;  how  he  raised 
money  to  pay  the  mercenaries,  501 ; 
becomes  irresolute,  502 ;  his  final 
downfall  and  death,  502-509 ;  esti- 
mate of  his  career,  508,  509. 

Roads  made  safe  for  travellers,  434, 

Robert,  King  of  Naples,  399. 

Roland  of  Parma  presents  Henry's 
letters  to  Pope  Gregory,  257. 

Roman  society,  state  of,  at  the  end 
of  the  4th  century,  3  et  seq. ; 
irresponsible  wealth  of  the  patri- 
cian class,  3,  4 ;  debased  state  of 
the  populace,  4,  5;  luxurious 
habits  of  the  nobles,  5,  6 ;  and  of 
the  women,  7 ;  conjunction  of  the 
old  and  new  religions  in,  8-10 ;  re- 
lations of  the  Church  with,  10-12 ; 
Jerome's  picture  of,  quoted,  60, 
61 ;  undermined  by  the  ascetic 
ideals,  106-108.  See  Aristocracy 
and  Populace. 

Rome,  her  two  conquests  of  the 
world,  1,  2;  transitional  period  in 
her  history,  2 ;  her  position  at  the 
end  of  the  4th  century,  3;  be- 
lieved in  the  4th  century  to  be 
the  Scarlet  Woman  of  Reve- 
lation, 105;  sacked  by  the  Goths, 
108,  109;  successive  sieges  of, 
119,  120;  no  patriot  aroused  to 
the  defence  of,  123;  defenceless 
state  of,  138 ;  distress  and  pesti- 
lence in,  144-147,  150,  151;  pre- 


INDEX. 


61T 


served  by  Gregory  from  barbarian 
attacks,  151;  heartened  by  Greg- 
ory's energy,  159;  Gregory's 
achievements  for,  169, 182 ;  Greg- 
ory accused  of  destroying  ancient 
buildings  in,  176;  state  of,  in  the 
llth  century,  182, 183 ;  its  outward 
aspect  in  the  time  of  Gregory 
VII.,  242,  243;  a  portion  of,  seized 
by  Emperor  Henry  IV.,  293 ;  Henry 
withdraws  his  troops  from,  295; 
and  again  occupies  the  city,  296, 
297 ;  sacked  by  Guiscard  and  the 
Normans,  299;  Innocent  III.  en- 
deavours to  strengthen  his  hold 
upon,  322,  323;  her  constitution 
changed  by  Gregory,  323;  popu- 
lace of,  at  enmity  with  Innocent 
ITT.,  375;  buildings  erected  in,  by 
Innocent,  376 ;  disorderly  state  of, 
in  the  14th  century,  381-383; 
strongholds  of  the  great  nobles  in, 
382;  fight  between  Papal  troops 
and  the  people  of,  384-386 ;  recep- 
tion of  Louis  of  Bavaria  in,  389; 
as  arbiter  of  the  world,  390; 
how  Fra  Venturino  was  received 
in,  394,  395 ;  public  safety  and  jus- 
tice unknown  in,  401,  424,  425 ;  es- 
tablishment of  the  Buono  Stato  in, 
425-427 ;  public  safety  secured  in, 
by  Rienzi,  432, 434 ;  apprehensions 
aroused  in  foreign  countries  by  the 
revival  of,  435,  436;  her  claim  to 
universal  dominion,  439 ;  assertion 
of  the  claim  by  Rienzi,  442-444; 
expedition  of  the  Colonna  against, 
453-457 ;  dream  of  a  double  reign 
of  universal  dominion  in,  475 ;  cele- 
bration of  the  Jubilee  in,  480,  481 ; 
anarchy  in,  after  Rienzi's  fall,  483, 
484 ;  possessed  no  native  art,  516 ; 
external  state  of,  at  Pope  Martin's 
entry,  517-522;  restoration  and 
adornment  of,  begun,  522, 523,  525 ; 
restoration  and  adornment  of 
buildings  in,  by  Nicolas  V.,  544, 
549;  art  workshops  in,  545,  546; 
ancient  monuments  restored  by 
Paul  II.,  562 ;  still  disorderly,  569 ; 


King  Ferdinand's  advice  regard- 
ing the  balconies  and  tortuous 
streets,  570;  his  suggestion  adopt- 
ed by  Sixtus,  571.  See  Borgo. 

Rudolf,  Duke  of  Suabia,  233,  290; 
elected  king,  275 ;  anxious  for  the 
council  of  arbitration,  281 ;  his  case 
stated  before  the  Lateran  Council, 
282;  declared  King  of  Germany 
by  the  Pope,  285 ;  Gregory  sends  the 
imperial  crown  to,  289 ;  his  death, 
290.  See  Emperors,  the  two  rival. 

Rufinus  travels  with  Melania,  36, 37 ; 
arrives  in  Rome,  100;  his  contro- 
versy with  Jerome,  ib. 

ST.  BENEDICT.  See  Benedict,  order 
of. 

St.  Jerome.    See  Jerome. 

St.  John  Lateran,  the  church  of,  521, 
573;  internal  revolution  in,  588. 

St.  Mary,  the  monastery  of,  186. 

St.  Paul,  the  monastery  of,  Hilde- 
brand's  reforms  in,  194. 

St.  Peter,  evidence  for  his  presence 
and  execution  in  Rome,  540. 

St.  Peter's^  the  old  and  the  modern 

"^^Eurcn7^39,  541;  additions  made 
to,  by  Nicolas,  545;  pulled  down 
by  Julius  II.,  583, 584 ;  architecture 
of  the  ancient  church,  584;  com- 
pletion of  the  present  church,  600. 

St.  Remy,  consecration  of  the  church 
of,  196. 

St.  Stefano  Rotondo,  church  of,  re- 
built, 544. 

St.  Teodoro,  church  of,  rebuilt,  544. 

Salerno,  Gregory's  arrival  at,  301. 

San  Lorenzo,  chapel  of,  546. 

Savelli,  Francesco,  430. 

Savelli,  Luca  de,  448. 

Saviello,  Jacopo  di,  384,  385. 

Scotland,  Church  of,  its  position  be- 
fore the  Disruption,  and  that  of 
the  Church  in  Gregory's  time,  com- 
pared, 302,  303. 

Secret  society,  the,  and  Rienzi's  ad- 
*dress  to,  423,  424 ;  the  conspiracy 
carried  out,  425-427. 

Silvia,  124, 128. 


618 


INDEX. 


Simony,  188,  224,  230;  crusade  of 
Leo  IX.  against,  196-199;  Hilde- 
brand's  hatred  of,  211,  232;  con- 
demned by  the  first  Lateran  Coun- 
cil, 236;  Gregory  VII.  a  martyr  to 
his  hatred  of,  303,  304. 

Sismondi  quoted,  390. 

Sis  tine  chapel,  575;  completion  of, 
601. 

Sixtus  IV.,  his  pedigree,  569;  his  pur- 
poses and  achievements,  ib.,570; 
rebuilds  the  narrow  and  tortuous 
streets,  570;  builds  a  bridge  over 
the  Tiber,  571 ;  reconstructs  the  hos- 
pital Santo  Spirito,  572,  573;  his 
violent  temper,  573 ;  all  Rome  per- 
vaded by  his  work,  ib.,  574 ;  re- 
stores the  aqueducts,  574 ;  painters 
employed  by,  for  the  Sistine 
chapel,  575 ;  his  varied  aims  and 
activities,  575-577  ;  reinstates  Pla- 
tina  and  his  fellow-scholars,  577; 
enlarges  the  Vatican  library,  ib. ; 
his  taste  in  art,  ib. ;  his  favourites, 
578-580. 

Soldiers  of  Fortune,  487;  Rienzi 
procures  the  services  of,  489 ;  how 
he  raised  money  to  pay  them,  501. 

States  of  the  Church,  Innocent  III. 
regains  possession  of,  324,  325 ;  se- 
cured by  Julius  II.,  587 ;  part  of 
them  lost  again,  596. 

Stefano,  Cardinal,  215. 

TASSO,  263. 

Taxes  imposed  by  Rienzi,  501. 

Tedeschi,  the,  325,  389. 

Thebaid,  the,  15. 

Theodolinda,  Queen,  151,  156, 159. 

Thierry,  quoted,  21,  26,  84,  93,  96. 

Thomas  of  Sarzaiia.    See  Nicolas  V. 

Toulouse,  358. 


Trajan  and  the  widow,  effect  of  the 
story  upon  Gregory,  143. 

Tuscan  League,  325,  326. 

Tuscany,  interference  of,  in  the  elec- 
tion of  the  Popes,  203,  204,  216,  217. 

UTRECHT,  Bishop  of,  260. 

VATICAN,  its  reconstruction  begun 
by  Innocent,  376;  enlarged  and 
adorned  by  the  Popes,  544 ;  addi- 
tions built  to,  by  Nicolas,  545; 
library  of,  founded  by  Nicolas, 
546;  and  enlarged  by  Sixtus,  577. 

Venice,  drives  a  bargain  with  the 
Crusaders,  353. 

Venturino,  Fra,  his  reception  in 
Rome,  394,  395. 

Vertolle,  Conte  di,  448. 

Vespasiano  the  bookseller,  523,  524. 

Vico,  Giovanni  di,  436,  437,  453. 

WILLIAM  THE  CONQUEROR,  his  in- 
vasion of  England  sanctioned  by 
Hildebrand,  221,  222. 

Women,  friendships  between  relig- 
ious zealots  and,  49,  50;  harshly 
spoken  of  by  Catholic  teachers,  49 ; 
their  success  in  the  art  of  govern- 
ment, 202 ;  take  part  in  the  election 
of  a  Pope,  227 ;  form  part  of  a  coun- 
cil called  by  Gregory  VII.,  233,  234. 

Women,  Roman,  their  artificial  life, 
7 ;  influence  of  the  conflicting  re- 
ligions upon  their  actions,  9,  10; 
Jerome's  description  of  different 
types  of,  60-62.  See  Marcella,  the 
Society  of. 

Worms,  Council  of,  190,  253-255. 

ZARA,  capture  of,  by  the  Crusaders, 
353. 


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.lftlf  t  o  1070 

JUN  2     1977 

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DEC  13  1977 

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General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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